RED's ashes
by Pajaros en la cabeza
Summary: Translation of my fanfic "Las cenizas de RED". It is set after another one of mine called "Un final, un comienzo" (only in Spanish at the moment). Engineer & Pyro tried to raise their children away from their past as mercenaries, but that past comes back to them and young Irene, Minnie and Wilbur get implied in the plot their parents couldn't leave behind completely. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**_TEAM FORTRESS_** **BELONGS TO VALVE**

* * *

 **THIS WAS WRITTEN BEFORE ALL THE COMICS WERE RELEASED AND CONTAINS A FEW PERSONAL HEADCANONS**

* * *

Irene, Minnie and Wilbur's family was fairly wide. They had at least six uncles, seven if they counted the wife of one of them, who only seemed to bring more and more children to the world, and those automatically became their cousins. Almost all of them came from different countries, so they didn't see each other very often. The parents of the Conagher siblings turned each birthday and holiday into an excuse to meet; Irene supposed, since she was old enough to feel interested about the world of the adults, that all families did it.

She had very different kind of uncles but there was one who really attracted his curiosity, and that was precisely the only distance uncle she had. Uncle Ludwig was a bit like God: she had never seen him in person but from time to time he showed he was there, looking after his nephew and nieces. Every birthday she and her little siblings got a package, sent from a changing location, which contained a present. These presents were a bit antiquated, typical of someone who didn't know children at all, nor the Conaghers nor the rest, but had good intention. The arrival of these packages was quite an event, even for their mother. Although it was true that her mother could feel enthusiastic about drying paint.

What made birthdays special, apart from the gifts from the mysterious uncle Ludwig, was their uncles and cousins' visit.

"Uncle! Uncle! Uncle!"

"What's up, precious? How big you are!"

Uncle Mun lifted Minnie and kissed her cheek. Wilbur was only two years old but not willing to be ignored, so, like a ducling, he approached his uncle and pulled his trouser leg as he made noises to attract his attention. It worked. Irene, on the other hand, was opening uncle Ludwig's package on the carpet and it was his uncle the one who had to go to her encounter.

"Happy birthday, darlin'. Got many gifts this year?"

"Yes. Look: uncle Ludwig sent me a book." Irene showed him. " _The human body."_

Uncle Mun smiled showing his teeth. He seemed to find something funny in that, which Irene couldn't see.

"Well, here you have another one. But be careful, don't hurt him."

Dell walked out of the kitchen when he heard the children's exclamations. He saw a circle of little heads around a small, fluffy animal so beautiful that the birthday girl forgot the rest of the presents in the drop of a pen. Even cousins Lincoln, Jeff and Washington, who didn't want to have anything to do with their obligatory cousins, came closer.

"Is that a dingo?" he asked his old friend.

"Was it a bad idea?" uncle Mun asked.

"Nah. It'll be good for us. We missed having a pet at home."

"I found it around, they killed his mother. I thought the kids would like it."

"You see they do. They're like mad."

They took the chance to greet each other properly, with a long embrace. After that, the two men got into the kitchen to meet the rest. The children were too excited with the new pet to listen the enthusiastic greetings from the adults.

"How should we call it?" Irene asked.

"Brisky!" Minnie suggested.

"That's an ugly name." Washington intervened. "Teddy's better. For Theodore Roosevelt."

"But Teddy's your little brother's name. I don't want to give him a baby's name." Irene replied.

"Name him Brisky!" Minnie insisted.

"Coco" Wilbur proposed, his voice barely audible in that crowd of older children.

"Hey, did you thank uncle Mun-Dee?" Lincoln asked then.

"Eh? No..." Irene replied.

Lincoln was the oldest of them all and knew lots of things, so it was normal that he found details which them, being younger, had never considered.

With a martial air he was imitating from his dad, Lincoln explained it to her:

"When a superior gives you a present or any other good stuff, you always have to thank them right away. And you salute them."

"Why the salute?"

"Because that's what men of honor do."

Well, that was the way things were. Irene didn't discuss it.

They would discuss the name matter later. She gave the puppy to Wilbur, so that he had the chance to caress it, and Irene walked into the kitchen. Adult field, the place where, before dinner, they drank beer, smoked and talked about things children didn't understand.

"I have no idea where the hell he is."

"He'll be fine. The two of them. I'm sure."

"The girl's reading's great, huh? I see she had a good teacher."

"She's very bright, yes. She likes reading a lot."

"What about mechanics? She likes it?"

"Minnie does. She always wants to help and has a lot of projects in mind. Irene doesn't seem very interested and Wilbur prefers to watch."

"Our Lincoln told us past Monday that he has decided to follow the military career."

"Well, going to a military school and being the son of a soldier..."

"He already knows how to shoot and last month he started exercising with his mother. He says he wants to be a captain before eighteen."

"His brothers do too."

"I saw your Lincoln's a little man."

"But when will you stop making children?"

"When it stops feeling good."

"I want to have lots of children. My mother and sisters say that too. They are glad, with the house full of voices and life."

"And when's your turn, Scout?"

"Me? I'm already surrounded by nephews, saturated; I have enough with them."

"Let him find a woman who stands him first, then let's speak of children."

"Hahahaha!"

"Those kids are stealing our jobs. I can see them."

"Nah. These won't have to live the same we did. Luckily."

"Yes."

The conversation was suddenly interrupted when Irene was noticed behind uncle Misha.

"Look who we have here. The birthday girl."

Instantly, those hands brightened and it stared to rain pinches on her cheeks and caresses. Her mother took her in her arms and gave her a tremendous kiss.

"Thanks for the present, uncle Mun," and it was followed by a military salute that made everyone laugh, specially proud uncle Jane.

"No problem, honey. Promise you'll take care of it?"

"Yes."

Irene couldn't even suspect that the day of her sixth birthday would be the last time she saw her uncles in a very long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**_1990_**

 ** _Ten years later_**

* * *

"You know Dad's going make a fuss, right?" Irene smirked.

"I know," Minnie sighed, "I'm seeing it: he'll be at the living room with Mom, pretending he's calmly watching the TV..."

"...As soon as you walk through the door he'll ask how the party went, if you had dinner, if you had fun..."

"...And then who I was with, who their parents are, until he has a profile. Why can't he leave us alone?"

"Yep...Let's see if the does the same to Willy when he's old enough to go out with girls."

"That won't happen to Willy. He's a boy."

"And he's more interested in toys than women."

The two sisters couldn't help giggling in a kind of cruel manner. Irene turned on the headlights as soon as she noticed it had darkened in not much time. She knew that road so well she could have driven with her eyes closed, it wasn't that dark, but she had promised her father she would take traffic rules very seriously, even being at the asshole of the world.

"So? Did Mitch make a move?"

"Pfft. Don't talk to me about that jerk. One of these days I'm gonna break his head with a wrench, he's asking for it. I swear, all guys in this town as soon as their voice changes and start growing a few hairs become perverts. He started commenting about how big my tits grew since we were in fourth grade and told me that I'd be very cute if it wasn't for my tomboy attitude. Hadn't Julie taken me to a corner, I would have punched him."

"I know, right? I know his brother. He's an asshole too."

Minnie shook in the copilot's seat.

"My feet hurt a lot. I'm going to bed as soon as we get home."

"We're almost there."

"Can't you go faster? A hedgehog just passed us."

"No. I don't want to listen to Dad's rants either."

It didn't take them long to get home, the only house in almost a mile area. Minnie had always admired that building for many reasons. The main one was its attitude: it stood very dignified in its solitude, it didn't need anybody around to manage well. Just like its inhabitants. That was reason number two: her parents had built it with their own hands; her mother being pregnant with her first daughter. Bee Cave's people could be proud about some things but few could brag about having built their houses from scratch. A safe and pretty house.

She could already see the lights and almost even feel its warmth.

But there was something that didn't quite fit in. Minnie noticed when they got out of the car. The fence gate was open and so was the front door but not a sound was heard. Link hadn't rushed to greet them as he always did.

"Oh, no...Oh, goodness..."

Irene had stopped and pointed Minnie a lump that was lying on the grass. There, next to the gate, lied the dingo with his mouth open, showing the teeth, and his body shot. The ground around him was messy. He had died fighting.

Against what?

The two girls, after the inevitable moment of stupefaction that the horrible finding had caused, ran into the house calling their parents and brother.

It seemed not only Link had fought. At the living room, the television was still on. One of the frames had fallen and crystals filled the floor around it. Someone had fallen on them because there were blood splatters around, in direction to the door. The dining table was knocked down.

"Mom?" Irene yelled, unable to look away from that scene. "Wilbur?"

They inspected their parents' room and theirs but there didn't seem to be any change in them. They found in Wilbur's his Walkman on his bed and the lamp on but not him.

"Wilbur?"

A sound startled them. The door of their brother's closet was slowly opening from inside. The boy peeped out frightened.

"Wilbur! Oh, my God, Wilbur!" Minnie embraced him in a gesture caused by anxiety. "What happened?"

The boy was terrified. The girls had to give him a moment so that he could collect himself. Even once he was calm they found it difficult to understand his mumbling–communication had never been his strong point–, but they managed to understand something.

He was listening to music when Dad rushed into his room, ripped the headphones out and forced him to hide deep inside the closet. Wilbur didn't have the chance to ask anything at all. He had never seen his father so anxious. Once inside the closet, he heard a commotion. Screams and blows. When silence came, it was so deathly and absolutely harrowing that he felt the necessity to come out and take a look, but obeyed the orders and remained there, paralyzed. Someone was walking around the house, surely looking for them. They would have looked inside the closet if it wasn't for a person outside telling them to hurry. The house felt into silence, but he refused to go out. He was scared to death.

"So Mom and Dad..." Minnie muttered. "Who could have kidnapped them? Why?"

"Maybe they broke in to steal something..." Irene said.

"I don't think so. They would have got rid of them with no problem. It wouldn't be the first time someone sneaks in, remember? The sentries..."

The idea stroke them.

The sentries!

There were two sentries at each access to the house, a big one inside the shed. Dad called them "security system". The children had grown up supposing that each house had something similar. Not counting the guns which assured completely that no mother-hubbard came in and took away what wasn't theirs.

"Geez! Have you seen this? They're broken! Torn into pieces!"

Wilbur held in his hands the remains of the machine which had assure him and his sisters a peaceful childhood. He felt sad for that loss, and worried too.

"These couldn't be usual burglars. They have to have a mighty good technology." Minnie observed. "Dad made them good."

"I don't like this at all. I'm going to call the..."

Wilbur raised a hand, telling Irene to stop.

Steps. At the front door. The hearts of the three siblings raced. Would those guys be brave enough to come back and finish the job?

Irene recovered as soon as possible. She was the oldest–even if it wasn't for just a year–and that gave her the responsibility to protect her younger siblings. She ran to find the shotgun that was usually hanging on the living room's wall, loaded just in case. She found it lying on the floor–she supposed her parents had tried unsuccessfully to use it to defend themselves–and ordered her siblings to stay behind her. She aimed. The steps were closer at every moment.

A man appeared into the living room. His face was hidden behind a mask but exposed a few features of his face which made evident that he was no younger than sixty. He wore an elegant suit, so much that he was out of place in that rural place. He came in with his hands up.

"You are the Conaghers," he said as soon as he was in, with a peculiar accent, foreign.

The boys didn't reply, so the newcomer insisted.

"Irene, Minerva and Wilbur Conagher. It is you. Am I right?"

They were still mute, but Wilbur nodded.

"As you can see, I carry no weapons, so it would be nice if you stopped pointing at me with that gun. I didn't come to hurt you. I come to help you. I am Spy. I don't think they have told you about me."


	3. Chapter 3

In other circumstances the stranger would have been asked to sit on the sofa, they would have offered him a beer and had a relaxed chat with him. But this time the children were too shocked for formalities and that man didn't inspire much confidence.

Spy noted that but didn't seem to care. He remained quite calm.

"Those people wouldn't have hesitated to take you all, or even kill you if you put up much resistance. You have been lucky. If you don't mind..."

He made a pause to take a cigarette case from one of the pockets of his jacket and a lighter, lit it and put them back to their place.

"We should leave. I don't think they will be back because they already have what they wanted, but this is no place to stay."

Minnie could react at last.

"Fuck that."

Spy looked at her with an eyebrow raised.

"Not before you tell us what happened here. We don't know any Spy and nobody told us about one. If you know something, you're telling us or we'll call the police and..."

"And what is the police going to do?" Spy calmly exhaled the smoke. "Don't be silly, girl. It will be pointless to call the police. We have to fix this situation without the intervention of the authorities. What's more, the least we have to do with the law, the best. As for me, it is true that you don't know who I am, but I know you very well. The fact that I didn't go to those birthdays and team get-togethers doesn't mean I wasn't informed about everything. I know you and the children of those you call Uncle Jane and Aunt Zhanna. They were attacked too and I tell you you have been lucky, because there have been injured in their side. If you please, let us lea...

The Frenchman interrupted himself and turned his head towards the door with the reflexes of a cat. He made a gesture to the siblings to stay still and quiet. He literally grabbed a knife from up his sleeve and in such a subtle way that the Conaghers didn't notice it until he was already moving in direction to the source of the disturbance. They held their breaths and then gasped when they saw he disappeared. "He's a wiz!" Wilbur muttered, his mouth wide open.

Suddenly, there was a hit and a struggle.

"Oh, Spy, dammit! You scared me!" a female voice exclaimed.

"What are you doing here?" Spy asked, evidently annoyed.

"I got the same information as you, but I see I came too late. Are they gone?"

"Engineer and Pyro are. Their children are here, unharmed. And they won't stop asking questions."

"Are they alright?"

"You can see it yourself."

Spy returned to the living room followed by a woman. She had to be among twenty-five and thirty years old, had tan skin and a lioness' mane. Her eyes also had a certain feline, wild air, which made her attractive. He was carrying a big knife in her hand which she quickly hid from the children.

"This makes things a bit more difficult..."

The woman muttered something about them ("poor things, they are scared shitless", Minnie thought she heard) and approached them with a much sweetened expression.

"You'd better not stay here. Get what you need and come out. I promise: we will tell you everything, everything at all.

They had no choice, the Conaghers supposed, so they obeyed. They only took the essential and soon left the house with those two strangers. Wilbur broke into tears when he found Link's corpse. He asked for a moment to bury him, though Spy denied it, the woman accepted, as long as it was quick, and offered to dig the hole with him. Minnie and Irene didn't bother to change his mind and let him say goodbye to their dear dingo. They didn't join the ceremony because they were still too worried about the other members of their family, as well as distressed by the danger and the mystery. Irene couldn't take her eyes away from that Spy guy. He had picked up the remains of one of the sentries at the door and was examining it, as if he was looking for something. Before leaving he had walked around the house and gathered a few things.

Once Wilbur and the woman reunited with them, they left the house behind. Soon they left Bee Cave too, through roads they had once taken to go into vacations.

"Very well, we will tell you everything." Spy said. It was a luck that he had stopped smoking, because Minnie couldn't stand tobacco in closed places. "Before anything, this lady here is Gwendolyn Penn."

"Oh, please, not even my mother calls me Gwendolyn. Gwen. Call me Gwen." the woman replied.

"Yes, of course." Spy rectified, puffing.

"You...know our parents?" Irene asked.

"Yes. I worked with your parents and uncles. We were a team."

"Didn't they tell you about RED?" Gwen asked, looking away from the road for a second.

Wilbur shook his head and his sisters seconded him.

"Should we tell them?" Gwen consulted Spy.

"Of course. It is stupid to hide anything from them anymore," he replied.

"What? What did they have to hide from us?" Irene asked.

"Do you know under which circumstances your parents and uncles met?"

"Well, yes. We know they're not our blood uncles. Dad told us that he used to work for a demolition business and he met them and Mom there."

"That is only a half truth. That demolition business was a cover. Your parents didn't work tearing buildings down. Neither did I. My labor, as it is evident, was to get information. I was their spy. Each of your uncles had a very concrete function and none of them had anything to do with demolition."

"What did you use to do then?" Minnie asked.

"We were mercenaries."

"Get out of here."

Minnie smiled at her siblings and then at Spy but she saw him completely serious and her smile slowly faded.

"You're joking..." she muttered.

"No." Spy replied dryly.

"Our parents...Mercenaries..."

"Exactly."

"Sure, man...Bullshit...That's a big bullshit...Our parents wouldn't even hurt a fly."

Spy couldn't help making a grimace.

"I could tell you things about your parents that would cause you goosebumps. Specially about your mother."

"Our mother?" Irene asked.

"I am absolutely convinced that your mother is the most sadistic and inhuman person I have ever met. I saw her destroying people without blinking, in the bat of an eye, and with intense pain."

"Our mother's not like that. She has...It is true that she has a problem, but she has never hurt anyone. She's a good person. She loves us a lot. And Dad would never..."

"Your father was not a saint either. Those sentries were built to protect his children but years ago they served to protect our possessions and strategic points. Hundreds of bullets per second. Daddy also has his hands stained with blood. Just like your uncles. Snipers, bombers..."

"I don't believe you." Minnie complained. "I don't trust you two. Let's get out of here."

"Wait, wait, Minnie." Irene stopped her.

She sighed, rubbing her face.

"You are still too young. They probably wanted to wait until you were older to reveal their past to you." Spy said.

"Sure..." Irene whispered. "And how do you know what was going to happen?"

"It was thanks to Gwen here." Spy pointed. Unluckily for Minnie, he lit another cigarette.

"Yep. I was looking for Demoman, the one you know as Uncle Tavish." Gwen explained, "I followed his steps to Scotland and there I found his house, his recently buried mother but no trace of him. They didn't know what was made of him even in the taverns he used to go. He volatilized, you see. So I decided to get professional help. Precisely from a man who had worked with him and was very good at finding people. Our friend Spy."

"Even though I normally take care of more important cases than finding a drunken cyclops, I accepted because I wanted to put my old partner in a fine predicament. It was then when I found something worrying: he was not the only member of the RED team who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I tried to contact them to see if they knew something about him and it turned out some of them were gone too. I talked to Scout, that is Jeremy, and he confirmed that the communication with Demoman and also Sniper, Mun-Dee, was suddenly over. Two days after our conversation someone broke into his house and took him away. I contacted Heavy and Soldier, your uncles Mikhail and Jane, to warn them, and three weeks ago I discovered that it happened to them. But in their case they also kidnapped four of Soldier's children. The other two who resisted ended up severely injured.

"How horrible..." Irene lamented.

"But why did they do that for?" Minnie asked. "And what's more important: who?"

"That is what we are trying to discover. We have information, but is it very confusing. Our contact has problems to send us information and sometimes her warnings come too late.

Spy took a long drag.

"I have the feeling" he added, "that Mann Co. never stopped having something. I never believed they dedicated completely to making hats officially and weapons extra-officially. No. I think there is something else."

"Even being those old men dead?" Gwen asked.

"Despite all, yes."

Gwen pursed her lips.

"This is bad."

"Very bad." Spy nodded.

"We'd better leave the second part for tomorrow, we'll be rested then. These poor kids must have their heads ready to blow."

"True. In that case, let us leave the subject."

Once he said this, Spy took a leather wallet from inside his jacket, extracted a bundle of bills and gave it to Irene. She stared at it completely confused.

"What's this?" she asked.

"I didn't have the chance to give you anything for your birthdays, so there you have three thousand dollars plus interests accumulated", Spy replied and lied back to smoke comfortably.


	4. Chapter 4

When he walked out the room to smoke a cigarette and let the young ones sleep, Spy found Minnie watching the pool from the balustrade, her thoughts somewhere else. He approached her with such a stealth that startled her.

"Fuck..."

"You are identical to your father. Just that he only cursed when things got ugly."

Minnie didn't say a thing in a long while. Yes, she was just like Engineer, Spy thought. The same blue eyes, the same blond hair–when Engineer had hair–, the same hands used to work. She resembled the father and the boy to the mother. The older sister turned out to be mixture of both. It was rather curious.

"I can't believe he and Mom used to kill for money." Minnie finally muttered. "I always thought they were pretty normal people. Dad at least...I thought they were the kind of parents who punish you when you get home late or when you got bad grades, who took you to the cinema on weekends...They seemed normal people..."

Spy kept his eyes on the embers of his cigarette.

"Don't judge them for their past. They are decent persons indeed. They did all possible to leave all that behind and have a peaceful life for them and you. Even if that meant forgetting about earning a lot of money and having an exciting life. They aren't that bad, don't you think?"

Minnie curved her lips.

"No...I guess..."

Spy tossed his consumed cigarette and squashed it under his shoe.

"And why didn't we know you?" Minnie asked, turning to face him, even though there wasn't much to see. "Why did you never go to those gatherings or sent mail?"

"I didn't leave my job when the team was dissolved, so I had no time for get-togethers. The life of a spy is not easy. You get involved in lots of problems of difficult solution. Also, we cannot leave the job just like that and live happily ever after."

"Did you care about your teammates?"

"Sure I did. More than you can imagine. That's why I was alert for each movement, even if they couldn't see me."

"Hope you don't mind me saying, Uncle, but your job sounds like a big shit."

"Watch your language. You're a lady."

However, he said that with a smile which he passed to the girl. He lit another cigarette. How much could that guy smoke in a day?

The flame of the lighter had just ignited the tip of the cigarette when a beep was heard. Minnie though he had a mobile phone until she saw him placing his watch near his lips.

"Red."

"As blood." a man replied. He also had a non-American accent.

"Any news?"

"Some, yes. When can I see you?"

"We still have like two hundred miles. We stopped to spend the night in a motel. The children were tired."

"The children? Engineer and Pyro's? Are they alright?"

"You will have the chance to see it yourself. They are with me and Gwen."

"That woman's finally coming?"

"Trust me. She will be good to us."

"Well. Anyway, this is starting to become a daycare."

"I know, I don't like it either, but there's nothing we can do about it. See you."

Spy hung up and noted that Minnie was looking at him with curiosity.

"There's more people?"

"Yes. If everything goes right, you will see them tomorrow. Don't mind what he said: I am sure that he is dying to meet you and your siblings."

"Oh...Hey, what's that 'red as blood' thing?"

"A countersign. We change it from time to time. We believe there could be someone interfering our communications, so we make sure there are no impostors."

"Sure. A spy thing...That's a cool watch."

"Thank you. See? Being a spy is not that bad. You have fairly good devices."

* * *

Gwen turned around in bed and noticed that Irene had her eyes open and was looking at her.

"Aren't you sleeping?"

"I can't." and she supposed Wilbur, by her side, had only closed his eyes.

"Yeah. Sure."

"...I thought Spy didn't want the police to get involved..."

Gwen slowly drew a smile when she saw in which direction the girl's eyes were looking at. Her open backpack. Of course. The badge peeped out perfectly, as if it tried to escape and show itself in front of Irene. Well, that was no secret, so she had no problem speaking.

"There are two kinds of police: those we have to keep away and guys like me who have our particular interests."

"And what interest do you have in Uncle Tav?"

The badge was a thing but that, that was a very different one. Gwen took her time to answer.

"He did something bad he has to pay for."

Irene vaguely remembered Uncle Tav. She retained some memories but years had made them blurry. She remembered well when he sat her or her siblings on his lap or told them to sit around him and told them stories about pirates and monsters, his peculiar breath, his loud laughing and the patch that covered his eye; a wizard did it, he used to say. Demoman, they called him now. That meant their dear uncle not only handled alcohol bottles, but also explosives.

Irene's imagination overflew with stories about criminals and fugitives. She was convinced that Uncle Tav had robbed a bank some time using dynamite or blown up a mall. He had probably killed people.

She felt even worse than she was. The people she had grown up with, her family, were all criminals. Who knew what her own parents had done, which Spy and Gwen hadn't told them about.

"Don't worry. You'll see they're both alright. And your uncles too. They're tough nuts to crack.

"I hope so. But I can't stop thinking...that if something happened to them...Our uncles were our godparents...And they are too...What would become of us?"

"No. Halt. Stop right there. Don't think about it. Not even as a joke. Your parents are fine, believe me. Even if they're not, you won't go to an orphanage. You have so many people looking after you. Your parents and uncles were blood brothers and that means not you nor what they most cared about in the world will have trouble."

Irene felt Wilbur was cuddling against her and shifted into a kind of uncomfortable position to caress his hair.

"Try to sleep. We will leave soon in the morning."

"And where are we going?"

"To see your uncle. Well, what's left of him, because those two little monsters..."

"Wait, what uncle?"

"Medic. I don't know what's his actual name. He's German. Ludo? Wolfgang?"

"Ludwig?" Irene couldn't help jumping, startling her brother.

"That's it. I think."

"We're gonna meet Uncle Ludwig!"

"You're so excited." Gwen smiled amused.

"So, so much! I've never seen him, but he always sent me presents for my birthday and Christmas. Books about Medicine, plushes, a gorilla's heart preserved in alcohol...You know what? I'm studying to be a nurse and it's because of him. We're off to see him! Wow, I wonder what he looks like, if he'll be glad to see us..."


	5. Chapter 5

He couldn't move his left arm. It hurt like hell. But legs were still working, that was the important thing.

Scout didn't take any more time to catch his breath. He had to run, run with all his might, even if that meant fainting in the try.

He didn't know where to go. Wherever. Away from there. He would contact Spy somehow.

He would think about it later. Now all he had to do was running.

* * *

Although they were used to the copious–almost always scorched– breakfasts their mother prepared for them, the Conagher siblings only had a juice or a glass of milk with cocoa before leaving. Their stomach didn't allow anything else in, they were so nervous.

Gwen drove and Spy was copilot, lost in some kind of reflection. Perhaps he was listening to the conversation the children had in the rear seats but he didn't interfere.

"Uncle Ludwig? Cool! I always wondered what he was like." Minnie smiled.

Wilbur grinned as well.

"I'm sure he's one of those evil 'herr doktors' from movies. If he was a mercenary..."

"Yes...But I can't help feeling worried, you know?" Irene said. "It's just...if he's free it's because they didn't go get him yet, right? What if those people come now?"

"They may have tried to kidnap him already and he kicked their asses."

"Maybe...But I don't know how a doctor could defend himself when our parents and uncles, specially uncles Misha and Jane, couldn't..."

"Well, with...I don't know...scalpels?"

Wilbur let out a loud yawn with his mouth so open that his jaw could have dislocated.

"What about Mom and Dad?" he whispered.

"They're fine, Willy." Irene tried to console him. "Surely."

She wished she was so convinced herself.

They couldn't remain still during all that long trip, on one hand because of their excitement and on the other, because everything around them was boring. Gwen switched the radio on, but that didn't help at all. Wilbur ended up dozing and Minnie counted every post she saw. Irene daydreamed, imagining her father building massive machine guns, her mother setting fire to a poor guy with a smile, each of her uncles killing, torturing, maiming people. Not the best pastime but she had to get used to the idea as soon as possible. That was the truth. The adults she once admired and loved knew were murderers. All of them.

The trip was like two hours long and it seemed endless to them. They were practically sleepy when Gwen stopped the car and told them they could leave it.

They got out and stretched their legs, then they saw they were in the outskirts of a little town. In Oklahoma, if Irene remembered well having read that in a sign. Anyway, none of the children asked a thing, because it didn't really matter where they were.

They walked to a little house which was part of a line of identical buildings, copies with no originality or grace. The number 9 of a street which had a name which made Wilbur giggle for a reason. Spy rang and waited with a hand inside his pocket. Gwen moved the children aside and they saw she was also ready for anything.

A boy opened the door.

"Ah. You came sooner than we thought. Medic is having a shower."

Irene didn't recognize her cousin Lincoln after a long while. Had she inspected uncle Jane's face carefully when she was a child, she would have shared the general opinion that, instead of children, he had made copies of himself. From him, his first-born, to the youngest son, they were all identical to each other and all of them were just like him. They were completely uniform: shaved hair, prominent jaw and that chest swollen with pride and bravery. She didn't know the other boy in the house. That was the youngest of the family, a seven-year-old. His name was Reagan and wasn't as tall as his oldest brother but he also had the same martial air, which seemed almost ridiculous in a dwarf like him. His front tooth were missing and that was the reason why he spoke in such a funny way.

They didn't know Gwen and it took them a moment to know who those girls and boy were. They greeted each other and, sat around a small chair in the dining room, they shared their experiences.

"We were so calm when it came." Lincoln told them. "It was only one but got to beat Mother. Father ripped his shirt and went after it but it knocked him out with a hit in the head and took him away. The boys and I tried to stop it. He hit me against a wall and I fell unconscious. When I woke up...

"Jeff, Washington, Teddy and Fitz were gone too. There was blood everywhere." Reagan interrupted him. He had grabbed a cookie jar from a cupboard and was eating them.

"Cadet, you don't interrupt the grown-ups and speak with your mouth open!" his brother scolded him.

"Yes, sir! I'm sorry, sir!" Reagan quickly replied, leaving the cookies on the table and saluting him.

As soon as he said so, he ate other two cookies and Wilbur took the chance to grab one, even if he wasn't hungry, because they looked mighty good.

"In short, we lost six men and Reagan and I were left wounded. Uncle Mikhail found us, asked what happened and as soon as he left us in a safe place, he went after them. He didn't come back. Spy found us and took us with the Doctor."

"At least you had a chance to defend them..." Irene sighed.

"You couldn't have done anything. It was gigantic. It was a-"

"Robot!"

Wilbur suddenly stood up and ran towards the living room. The other children followed him and saw that, indeed, what was lying on a corner was the remains of a robot. Minnie squatted down in front of what she supposed was the head. How curious, that was kind of familiar...

Medic had his face filled with soapy water. He felt, looking for the towel, until it magically appeared in her hands.

"Clean and fresh, huh?" Spy asked with a smile.

Medic jumped with a little scream. Gwen gave him his glasses before he started looking for them. That way he could see the two intruders.

"When did you come? Why didn't those bloody boys tell me?"

"Maybe because of your threats?" Spy smirked.

"Well, yes, I told them I would play the violin with their guts if they bothered me, but this is another thing, this is important. Everything was well?"

"Perfect."

"Alright, give me a moment."

The Conaghers stopped paying attention to the jumble of metal to see the man who came out of the bathroom. It was an old man with white hair, who wore round glasses and had a penetrating look. It was so that they felt a little shiver when he looked at them for the first time, watching them with a deep interest.

"Medic, these are Engineer and Pyro's children. Kids, this is your uncle Ludwig."

They were dying to hug him but the way he look at them stopped them. More than kid, he was staring at them as if they were some kind of recently discovered insect and muttered in a way which seemed he was having some kind of concert.

"Hmm...Hm...Hm-Hm-Hm..."

Finally, they heard him mutter:

"Yes, it is them..."

"Did you think they were spies?"

"One never knows."

"Hey, Uncle Ludwig, what's that?" Minnie asked, pointing at the robot.

"I'd like to know that too." Spy saw that for the first time. "You didn't call to tell me they actually came."

"It was early this morning. I thought it wasn't that important."

"It is. That means they have found you and we have to go."

"I suppose. We had to move anyway. Another message came this morning. They are in the country. Somewhere in the South."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"Well, it's something." Gwen shrugged.

"We know so little that any detail, as small as it is, is welcome..." Medic nodded. "By the way, you are...?"

"Gwen Penn, Nevada Police Department." she introduced herself.

Medic didn't shake her hand. He looked at her with a subtle wrinkle in his nose.

"Don't worry, friend, I have nothing against you. I am following Demoman but what you or the rest of the old team did in my state or in American or European land, I don't give a damn. I'm here to help." the young woman assured, raising her hands.

"Aha..." Medic didn't sound too convinced. "Well, we need all help possible."

Spy kept contemplating the remains of the robot.

"This is a Mecha Engineer..."

"Is that...supposed to be Dad?" Irene asked, staying by his side to have a closer look.

"It is inspired by his class. Your father could be a cretinous sometimes, but he was never a weapon of massive destruction." Spy replied.

"The one who attacked us was a Scout." Lincoln informed.

"Yes, the nine classes." Spy muttered.

"Alright, okay, wait" Gwen combed her hair with her fingers. "Are you telling me that that junk is back into action? But Gray Mann is dead...Wasn't he?"

"Last time we saw him, he was." Medic replied.

"He should be." Spy joined.

"So..." Minnie looked at her sister, "there were robots too?" Dad and Mom did have an interesting life."

"I'm starting to have trouble following all this." Irene said.

She looked at her cousin Lincoln and ended up getting his attention with a soft pat.

"Hey, Lincoln."

"Yes?"

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"Did you get to be a captain?"

Lincoln seemed to be ashamed and surprised about that question. It took him a some time to reply.

"No. Only a lieutenant."

After making some calculations, Irene would have comforted him saying that being a lieutenant at that age had its merit too, but it seemed Lincoln didn't like being reminded of that old promise because he didn't speak to her anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

Wilbur caressed the white dove's head, after it finally became docile and accepted to be in his hands. Its feathers needed a little washing, but it was a very pretty bird. Archimedes, that's how Uncle Ludwig had called it, and Wilbur thought it was a weird name.

"That dove is much older than any of you children." Medic commented.

"I thought..."

What on Earth was Uncle Ludwig doing, inhaling the red vapor which emanated from a device? Irene tried to ignore that detail.

"I thought doves only lived for ten years in the best of cases."

"Actually fifteen," her uncle corrected, "but I take care of those I appreciate."

"Therefore the packages?"

A smile appeared in Medic's face.

"Your father was a good friend of mine. One of the few men I could have an interesting conversation with. We worked side to side developing useful technology for the team. It was the least I could do for him."

"I suppose you sent them from different places because you're still a merc, right?" Minnie observed, "Like Spy."

"You caught me. Yes. I need to keep busy at my age. As much as I love doves, I wouldn't be able to spend the day feeding them, or sat on a bench in the park, or on holidays."

Wilbur approached his nose to the vapor device and Medic moved him away softly. It's not for children, he told him.

"Work and a little help allow me to keep senility away." the doctor smiled. Enough for now, he said to himself, placing the mechanism aside and getting up from the bed. "What has your father been doing these years?"

"He works in a petroleum well," Irene replied.

"There? Pfft. What a way to waste his intellect, extracting dirt from the soil. Eleven PHDs and prodigious hands...He was a big man and he could have still been."

"He wanted to have a more peaceful life for his family," Irene frowned.

"Sure. And I see he couldn't have it," Medic grabbed a trolley from under the bed and put the device and the few things in the room inside. "Don't be offended. I appreciate your father a lot and I believe he did the right thing. Although he has no problem getting rid of some bastards, his intentions were always good. It was no surprise for me that he ended up taking your mother with him. They were very good friends. Pyro was glued to him because he understood her. There was an special connection between them. Alright, there's nothing left. I don't have much baggage. Let's see if the others are ready."

They went to the living room. Gwen was having a conversation with Lincoln about cars, while Reagan looked under the sofa like a hound. Spy came from inside the house moments later and the child presented himself before him with a military pose.

"There are no mics nor explosives, sir!"

"Are you sure?"

"Only robot scrap!"

"Very well. Good job."

Reagan smiled proud of his work.

"Everything's ready." Medic announced.

"Alright. Let us move, then. There is no time to lose."

There was little luggage to take with them, so they soon left the house. Since all that story started, the young Does had gone through that situation five times, counting that one. Medic and Spy rented a house in a discreet neighborhood, pretending to be simple old men who were in the city on holidays, and moved to another as soon as they smelt trouble.

"What about the robot?" Gwen asked, turning her head towards the inside of the house.

"Bah, leave it there. The landlady gave us the house all filled with dirt. She'll clean it," Medic replied.

"It surprises me that half of the town isn't here," Irene observed.

"Why?"

"Well, because such a big thing has to attract people's attention. And if there was a fight..."

"No. It was late and I got rid of it as soon as I could. People came indeed, to complain about the noise; I told them Lincoln had his music very loud."

Spy was the last coming out and closed the door. He had barely done it when a man approached the group. He wore a uniform from a well-known mailing enterprise.

"Excuse me, Ahmed Kassemi?"

"Yes," Spy turned toward him.

"Urgent telegram."

As Spy signed the receipt, Wilbur looked at his sister Minnie with a questioning look. "Spy stuff", she told him.

Spy read the content of the telegram. Medic had stopped, waiting to see what it was about. As soon as he finished, Spy looked at him.

"Change of plans. We are going to the hospital."

"What does it say?" Medic asked, already moving.

"Scout got to escape." Spy replied.

Using his lighter, he burnt the message on his way to the car and tossed it to the grass to let the flames consume it. They traveled squeezed together on the car, till they got to a wrecking yard. There among all that junk, hid an old van which time ago had supposedly served to deliver bread. The car they had used to get to the town was immediately scrapped. After that, no trace of the group's presence in the town remained.

"We wanted to call Granny so that she wasn't worried but Spy didn't let us, he said it was dangerous. He changes his address and name so often, I can't remember all of them. He got very angry when Lincoln and I went to a payphone to call Merasmus. He was Dad's roommate, he's a wizard who makes magic; he would surely bring them back in a second. But he wasn't there. A guy called MerasMartin picked up the phone and told us Merasmus had gone to Yugoslavia to chase unicorns and that he didn't live there anymore." Reagan talked all the time and Wilbur had never opened his mouth much, so the two boys immediately stuck to each other like the opposite sides of a magnet.

"Uncle Jeremy..." Lincoln meditated. "I remember him. We sometimes played baseball and punching him. He got to escape..."

"Do you think he's alright?" Irene asked herself.

"He's in an hospital, Irene, he's obviously not," her sister told her.

Spy didn't open his mouth throughout the trip. Medic looked at him from the corner of his eye, but didn't know what to say to him. Spy was a very difficult man to comfort, because he didn't want to admit he was having a bad time in the first place.

As soon as they got there, the spy left them behind. He was still serene, he didn't get to run, but he walked too fast.

"Jeremy."

Room 144. It was a relief for Spy to see that Scout wasn't that bad; in fact, the Does felt a bit disappointed because they expected to see their uncle mutilated or being a mess, and all he had was one arm in a cast and little pronounced bags under his eyes. He was fine enough to torture his roommate with an endless chatter.

When they came into the room, Scout smiled.

"Hey."

It was surprising. He was older than forty and he still hadn't grown a bear. No trace of hair at all. The children could say that their uncle was exactly as they remembered him. He may have looked less like a child, but Gwen looked older than him.

Speaking of which, the very moment he saw her, his pupils dilated and his smile got dumber.

"How did you find me?" he asked.

"We got a message telling us you were there." Spy closed the curtain which separated both patients, knowing that the other wouldn't meddle because he had ear plugs on.

"A message? From who? I remember that I ran until I could run anymore and then, all black..."

"Your arm?"

"Yeah, a Heavy Robot. I was lucky I didn't end like a sieve."

"That can be fixed easily", Medic said.

He was carrying his bag. He opened it and took that vapor device that had intrigued the Conaghers. He then aimed at Scout with it and fired.

Scout let out a relieved sigh when the Medi Gun started to show its effects. The young ones watched in amazement how the wound, still bleeding, closed before their very eyes as if it was some kind of high-speed camera effect, until there was no trace of it.

"Wow..." Wilbur whispered.

"Did you see that, bro? Did you see that?" Reagan was hopping with enthusiasm.

"Shut up, cadet." Lincoln placed his hand on his face and forced him to stay still.

"Better?" Medic asked.

"Sure. Thanks, God." Scout stretched his arm, now without pain.

"Alright, let's go then."

Minnie watched that no doctors came while Scout changed his clothes and they all left the room.

"What did you see?" Spy lit a cigarette.

Scout sniffed his nose.

"It's crazy. It's those robots again. They took us to...Well, I think. We've been there before. It was a dump, there was no one in miles around. Sniper and Demo were there when I came. Then, they brought Soldier, Heavy and his sister, Pyro and Engie. I think the kids too. I didn't see them, but I could hear things from the hole I was left in."

"How sloppy. They should have been held incommunicados," Lincoln said, and he was shushed.

"Demo was tortured, I think. I heard him scream and..."

"Hold on." Gwen got closer. "Are you sure of that?"

"Almost sure. Maybe abstinence drove him mad. I think they did, they did something to him. They asked him to join their cause and since he refused...He started screaming. And then...then, he was all quiet and I heard that bitch tell her pieces of junk to get rid of that 'rag'. That's what she said."

Gwen walked away from the group, placing her hands on her waist with sorrow. Scout was distracted by her. She was really beautiful.

"If I am not mistaken," Spy conjectured, "you could hear all that was happening as a pressure tactic. Hearing how they torture your loved ones, or how they join the enemy. I have seen that before. I've gone through that."

"And what cause was that?" Lincoln asked.

"Getting Mann Co. back." Scout replied. "This time, for good. I think so. I heard Sniper say it. He made questions."

"He didn't..."

"I don't think so. Hell, if he joined them, I'll shove one of his guns up his ass. Ah, eh...sorry, kids."

"And who spoke to them?" Spy inquired.

"I don't know. They didn't get to call me. But it was a woman's voice."

Scout suddenly opened his eyes wide and suffered and spasm caused by the realization.

"You don't think miss..."

"Pauling?" Spy shook the ashes of his cigarette. "No. She was the one who told us where we would find you. She has been informing us about all that happened. It wasn't her."

Scout sighed with relief.

"Good to know. I was starting to think she had become a crazy old woman just like her boss...Well, what should we do now?"

"For the moment, see if it is true that they are in Well. I will make sure of that. You go find a place to hide until I come back. If I'm not with you in forty-eight hours, flee. Don't wait for me or try to rescue me."


	7. Chapter 7

"You know, Mister Conagher? I dug very deeply in your family history to find you. If you don't mind me saying, your family is a crucial piece in all this matter. Men of great talent."

Pyro had been locked up for a long time, impossible to guess for her, in a hole of barely three meters square, completely dark. Someone had to design that place so that the ventilation tubes, which let in the minimum air to breath, allowed to hear what was happening inside that room. There were loudspeaker perhaps. No idea. Anyway, she could hear everything just like if she was there. For hours, all she could do was stay in the most comfortable posture for her wounds and evade thinking. She remembered, because memories took her to other times in which everything was fine.

Dell was there with her. That was partially a relief. She hadn't seen him since that night when the Robot Spy sneaked into their house, sapped the sentries, shot down the pet who had betrayed him with its barks and hit her until everything went black. She feared it would have killed him.

What about Wilbur? Her boy was at home that night too, in his bedroom.

Her boy. Her little one. Her baby.

"Your grandfather change the course of the conflict with his life-prolonging inventions. And you made your contribution, too. I know you worked specially close to the old Administrator eighteen years ago. But I didn't bring you here to remember old times or review your resumé."

She could almost caress his hair. Although he was near that age when children stopped being affectionate to their parents, Wilbur still fussed over her mother just like when he was little. What a relief. She wouldn't have stood that her three children walked away from her. It still hurt her that Minnie preferred to be with teens her eyes rather than her. She had gone through that before with Irene, though she devoted almost all her time to her studies and weekend jobs. It was normal, Dell said. She grew up. She had to think of her future. She would soon go to college and leave the nest.

How horrible. Irene, away from her. Minnie would go later. And Wilbur too, when he grew up. Dell worked till late. A house without children. She would be alone until Dell came from work. She couldn't stand it.

No, she'd better not think about that. She focused on the memories. Memories were beautiful. Wilbur's hair, Wilbur's hair. How he kissed everyone he saw. He had always been an affectionate boy. Some said he was too affectionate for a boy, as well as they commented that Minnie had her hair too short and hobbies not suitable for girls. How stupid. She loved that her boy was tender and that her daughter built her own toys. Those afternoons she spent with her father in the hut, surrounded by scrap and tools...How she liked to peep in to see how attentively Minnie listened to Dell's instructions.

"I am not asking you to betray anybody, because there are no teams nor bosses anymore."

She could smell her daughter Irene's skin as if she had her in her arms. She hugged herself, pretending that she was there in that moment. Remember, Pyro? Remember when she came out of your body? It was an anguish, but she had gone through worse back when she was a mercenary. All that suffering was worth it, because as soon as she saw that tiny thing, a new world appeared before her eyes, much brighter than Pyroland. Her skin crawled when remembering the first contact of her fingers with Irene's skin, still bathed in blood and liquid. She didn't even wait for Dell to clean her a bit. She had had to wait for too many months, feeling her inside her body without being able to touch her. From the first moment she touched her older daughter, the colors fire allowed her to see became dull, boring, in comparison. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was her daughter and Dell's. Their first daughter. Her daughter.

"You could use your skills for superior purposes."

She didn't hear him talk. Was he alright? Oh, God, please, talk. She needed to hear his voice. When bullets flew over her head, when he ordered her to breathe deeply or when the baby cried and she didn't know how to make it stop, his voice was like a magic balsam for all problems. She saw him carrying his toolbox, smiling, so handsome, so magnificent. She rejected the idea that they could have broken his face during the kidnapping. That wouldn't have changed a thing, though.

"Your children need their parents to go back home."

Pyro felt her heart slamming against her chest. Her mouth opened a bit and a quiet hiss escaped from it, like a snake.

Engineer's lips parted at last. He didn't raise his voice but Pyro and the teammates who were in their cells heard every word like a storm:

" _If you mention my kids again...I will fucking rip your head off..._ "

There was a long silence.

"I see. My offer still holds. I will take you back to your room so that you can considerate it carefully. Take as much time as you need."

Heavy, metallic steps and then a definitive silence. Outside, at least. Pyro kept hissing until tiredness overcame her, though she wasn't able to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Gwen grabbed a chocolate bar from the vending machine. She found Scout's dumb face when she turned around. She smirked.

"Do I have something on my face?" she asked.

"Your name was Gwen, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"And you're a cop?"

"What's the matter? You don't believe it? Are you afraid?"

"Not at all. I've been clean for years. You oughta be good at your job, aren't ya? There's got to be so many people wanting you to cuff 'em..."

Gwen giggled and got closer to purr at him.

"All the contrary. They pray I don't catch them."

Scout laughed like stupid.

"Uncle, they have a jacuzzi!" Reagan pounced on him and, since he couldn't reach his shoulders, he held onto his pants, pulling them down.

Gwen took advantage of his apparition to leave.

"Eh, eh! Careful, kiddo, you're leaving me naked!" Scout pulled up his pants, took the boy in his arms and tickled him.

They went up to reunite with the others before going to sleep. Scout and the Conaghers would sleep in one room and Gwen, Medic and the Does in the contiguous.

For the children it would have almost been exciting to find themselves in that hotel all together, if it wasn't for the circumstances that had driven them to that situation.

"If there is any problem, tell us." Medic told them. "And Scout, don't eat anymore or you'll go into shock."

In spite of his warnings, Wilbur saw him eating a sandwich on the bed.

"Darn, you're huge," he commented, watching Irene, who had just walked out of the bathroom. "Last time I saw you, you didn't lift a foot on the ground. You make me feel old as heck."

"Uncle Jeremy, now that you mention it," Minnie sat with her legs crossed, "I can understand that Spy and Uncle Ludwig didn't keep in touch because they were in trouble but why haven't we seen you or the rest in such a long time?"

Scout's face saddened.

"What can I say, girl...Life. Everyone of us took care of theirs. We kept in touch but little. Only sometimes. After all those years and not having to work together...The normal thing, I guess. It happens to everybody."

"It's a shame."

"Yeah. But I guess it was time to move on."

The old mercenary smiled again and ruffled Wilbur's hair, who got comfortable on his side.

"What have you been doing?" Irene asked, sitting on the edge of their bed.

"I train kids on baseball and track and field too. You don't get as much money but I've got enough bullets for eight lives. Ah, and I married twice, but we were drunk the first one, so I don't think it counts, and the second didn't end up well. I haven't done much apart from that. I've been in peace. Too much peace, maybe. I'm glad Spy called me sayin' there was trouble. Well, no, I mean...I'm not glad that any of this happened. I don't know if you get what I'm trying to say."

"Don't worry." Irene said. "Sigh...I hope it is true that they are still in that place...whatever it is called."

"And that Spy comes back." Minnie added.

"Don't be so gloomy. Sure he'll be back. That bastard only gets away with everything. Believe me." Scout cheered them up. "I'm sure he'll be back in some hours."

"Are Mom and Dad alright?" Wilbur muttered, looking at Scout.

What Scout would have given for looking at the boy and tell him they were with absolute conviction! That they were not in a tiny space, in the dark, with almost no air to breathe, not able to sleep, fed with mush that barely filled one's stomach and provoked nausea, hearing how they called their friends to seduce or torture them!

"Sure, pal" he replied in the end.

The look he shared with the girls was quite significant but none of them said a thing. That night, Scout made sure he held Wilbur tight while he slept.

* * *

"Reno Police Department?"

"Do you have something, Tim?" Gwen took off her jeans as she held her cell phone with her shoulder, unaware of Lincoln and Reagan being very interested in her toned legs.

"Hi, Tim, it's Gwen, I'm alright. How are you, Tim? How's your back, Tim? How's your mother-in-law, Tim?"

"Come off it, man, and tell me if you found something."

"Girl, you don't say hello anymore. Not even in your free days are you going to stop thinking of...?"

"I'll call you when you..."

"No, I have nothing for you. We had black men but none of them had anything Scottish. We did get an arrest warrant against a guy with a patch but unless he whitened his skin and squinted his eyes..."

"No movement from Tavish DeGroot?"

"The last movement we have is still '69 in Teufort. If he's been into something since then, no one knew."

"Okay...Thanks, Tim, and sorry."

"You'll be back tomorrow, won't you?"

"No. I have important issues to take care of."

"Alright, Gwen, now you lost your mind completely. First you snoop around stuff that was none of your competence and now..."

"I am grateful for your interest, really. But this is more serious than catching a few dealers."

"It won't be some kind of secret mission, is it?"

"Not exactly."

"Sure...Well, I'll call you if I find something."

"Thanks, Timmy. Really. You're a dear."

"I'm making you pay in beers."

Gwen hung up and finally saw that the children were staring at her. Unaffected, she removed her shirt too in front of Reagan, who received a hit in the head from his brother because he didn't bother to dissimulate a bit at least. Medic, who had been looking through the window with his dove, turned around.

"You are taking a lot of trouble to find Demoman. Have your tried in a brothel? He always liked women."

"You're telling me, man." Gwen puffed, putting old pants and an advertisement T-shirt on.

Medic drew a smile.

"Do you think it's true that they tortured him to death?" Gwen asked. Medic thought he had just noted worry in her voice, barely hidden.

"It is possible. Highly probable, actually. So I hope your interest on him is a 'dead or alive' matter."

"It's not. I need him alive. I want him alive."

"Well. Maybe Scout is wrong. If he didn't see it...It wouldn't be the first time they use dirty tricks like that one."

"Do you think they tortured Mom and Dad too, and our brothers?" Reagan asked Lincoln.

Gwen looked at the boy and then at the oldest.

"Sure they did." his brother replied. "But don't forget something, cadet: no torture can stop us."

Medic had been forced to take care of the children–unwillingly, and forced for the blood which linked them to the one who had been his best friend–, and had never seen Lincoln have the slightest consideration to the little one. But in that moment Lincoln stopped acting the implacable drillmaster to comfort his little brother with a pat on his back, and it seemed like a pretty gesture to him. That was followed by a conversation about how much they had preferred to be captures so that they could spit on their torturers' face and die like martyrs before betraying anyone. Medic snickered and ignored them as he went to sleep.

* * *

Just half an hour and Stella would finally end her shift. But she felt the urgency to go to the bathroom and so got up from the reception desk. She had barely taken four steps when a woman, one around forty years old, blond, who wore design clothes, came to her.

"What can I do for-"

She was shot in the head. The gun didn't make a noise. The blond woman then walked over her, walked to the desk and started searching.

A man who wore a cleaner's uniform came out of the bathroom and saw the corpse. He had a big carpet ready to hide it. He could have used some help, but the woman had her own assignment and it didn't take him that much to roll the carpet and moved it to the little maintenance room. Then, he cleaned the blood from the floor.

By the time a couple of guests came into the hotel, there was no sign in the hall of the murder, and the two of them were near the stairs.

"Room 245 and 246," the woman told her partner.

He nodded and drove his cleaning cart into the service elevator. There, with the mop and the broom, was a rifle.


	9. Chapter 9

That place brought many memories back to him. Not really the good kind. But Spy didn't let nostalgia distract him from his task.

Scout was right: terrorized by the shots and explosions, people had left the area and hadn't dared to come back even two decades after the mercenaries were gone. For what he found out from a watchman who worked on a nearby factory, they had tried to restart the activity there but one or two years ago...movement was seen again, so they wrote the station off. That was the reason why many of the wagons were rusted, damned to rot in there.

It was no moment to succumb to the temptation to light a cigarette either. There could be someone in the surroundings.

He entered following a trace of blood, a bit like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs. It took him to the track of the fourth platform. Just a few steps by it he found numerous bullet casings, of a caliber he had only seen in heavy weapons. The Robot Heavy Scout had talked about. Yes, they had been there recently.

But that place wasn't made to hold prisoners. Unless it had been modified during those last twenty years, of course. That was a possibility, since they had absolute freedom to do and undo whatever they pleased. To find out, he'd only need to walk around the facilities. He would search the spawn rooms first. Perhaps...

His watch received a call.

"Scarlet..."

"Behind you."

The shot came right through the base of his skull.

Spy fell inert to the floor and the shooter approached cautiously. One could never tell with those bloody men, specially the spies. He had studied them. One could assume nothing when it came to them. That's why he shot him again in the forehead. Since that didn't seem to be enough for him, he kicked him softly and crouched to check his pulse. Yes, he was dead. In fact...

...He was too cold.

Before he could react, he had the tip of a revolver pressed to his nape.

"Your face looks familiar," Spy said, caressing the Dead Ringer in his fingers, "Yes...You are the messenger who brought me the telegram...So you have been following us...Mhm...Well, since you took such liberties, tell me: who do you work for?"

The man didn't reply. Spy turned around him to look him to the face, still aiming at him. One could find out more things about a person thanks to their expressions than what could come out of their mouth.

"Has it something to do with Gray Mann?"

The man raised his eyes to him. And then pounced on him. A move that didn't serve him to hurt Spy or escape, but only to get a shot in the head.

Spy contemplated the corpse with a grunt. He approached the watch to his lips.

"You didn't tell me you had access to the cameras on the old facilities."

"I've had it for a few hours."

"So, have they been using them?"

"Yes, to rearm, train and assemble their staff..."

"We are facing both robots and human mercenaries this time."

"It seems they learned their lesson: one can't trust machines exclusively."

"It is someone related to Gray Mann, isn't it? Robots are his distinguishing mark."

"I am not entirely sure about that, because the big shot hasn't shown their face anywhere. But it could be, and I'll tell you why: since there was activity again in Nucleus, Coldfront and the others, I thought of reactivating the surveillance cameras on Coal Town. And I found that I have no permission to take a look. So, someone has modified the security system. Which means that..."

"Coal Town is operative again."

"It seems they didn't bother to rehab or protect the other points because they were just a transit points. They used it to recruit people, store weapons and prisoners and then took them to a more convenient place. I also suppose they didn't think someone would want to supervise those ruins."

"So you think they took the team to Coal Town?"

"I bet they did. Well was only a provisional prison."

Spy nodded and, not giving the other time to make any more comments, he started running.

"I have to go." And he just hung up.

If they had been following them, that meant they would probably know where the others were. In other times he would have trusted Scout and Medic's capacity to handle undesirable visitors but many things had changed those last eighteen years.

* * *

It seemed Minnie had fallen asleep. If Irene could only say the same. She got to dozed off for a couple of hours but she woke up and it didn't seem she could go back to sleep.

She felt warm tears running down her cheeks and did nothing to stop them, she just made sure she didn't sniff too loudly. She hoped that Scout would bring news about their parents but he didn't. Actually, what he said about torture and the conditions the prisoners were in only made her worry more. She took advantage of her siblings sleeping to vent. Being the oldest meant being strong. But she was prepared to cook when her parents were not at home, to make sure nothing broke, not something like that.

In that moment the door opened; though it opened quietly, in that silence Irene could hear it perfectly. The others would have knocked before coming in...Or maybe that was Spy?

She almost raised, convinced that it could only be him, coming sooner than expected, when, frightened, she remained still. She had seen their face thanks to a weak light that came through the window and it wasn't him. He wore a janitor's uniform but that had to be the first hotel whose staff came into the rooms at night, without knocking and with a rifle in their hands.

The intruder didn't notice Irene was awake. From a distance, the man gazed at the four of them. That sight made Irene half-close her eyes and feel goosebumps.

Eventually, the man aimed at Scout with his gun. That encouraged Irene to act.

Letting out a scream and moving as quickly as possible, she grabbed one of her shoes, which she kept on the floor next to the bed, and threw it to him. She thanked all the gods, saints and angels that could be over in heaven when it hit right in the gun, deflecting the shot.

The sound woke up everyone in the room. Scout jumped out of the bed and with a speed that impressed his nephew and nieces got into a struggle against the attacker. Emboldened, Irene not only allowed her younger siblings to help retain him, she joined to punch him. The man shot again; he would have got Minnie right in the face if it wasn't for Scout grabbing the barrel and moving it in time.

He got to steal the weapon from him while the siblings immobilized him on his knees on the floor, and aimed at him with it.

"You big son of a bitch..."

Reagan ran through the door armed with the remote.

"Oh, they came to you too! Uncle Ludwig says you come!"

Medic himself appeared behind him when he had barely said those words.

"Come on, hurry," he said to the Conaghers.

The children obeyed instantly, encouraged by what Medic was holding on one hand: a medical saw stained with blood. When they left the room they saw Gwen speaking to a group of guests who had come out of their rooms alarmed by the noise. Minnie wondered how the heck she would get out of that one.

Because, as for her, she didn't know how she could explain the man who was held captive inside their room and the woman who laid dead next to one of the beds in Medic, Gwen and the Does'. Irene prevented Wilbur watching that corpse whose head was connected to its neck only by a few fibers. Lincoln, on the contrary, encouraged Reagan to check her pockets. Even Archimedes approached to walk on the dead woman.

"Someone called to Gwen's cell phone, it was thanks to that that Medic woke up and he made "zaaas!" with the saw to her neck." Reagan told them, generous in gestures.

"Wait, the uncle sleeps with a saw under his pillow?" Minnie asked.

"Oh, yeah. He says you never know. That's why he insists that we carry something with us. Since what happened to our parents and brothers, Lincoln has the shotgun Uncle Misha gave him for his birthday and I got a knife. See. It's so pretty, isn't it? One hundred per cent American."

"That's a good advice," Minnie looked at Irene, "We should have brought the gun from the living-room. What a mistake."

"Okay." Lincoln sighed, standing up. "This woman carries no identification but a caliber 45 pistol with silencer. But I think she would only use it if things got ugly. It seems she tried to kill Medic while he slept with this." He showed his cousins a syringe which contained a colorless liquid inside.

"So...Now there's no robots chasing us, but people?" Minnie asked.

"Well, being mercenaries, how do we know this isn't some kind of...score-settling, a rival band or something like that?" Irene asked.

"Robots, people, and I'm sure aliens too." Lincoln said. "Now that Scout escaped from their clutches and Spy's nosing around, they're throwing us all they got."

Gwen came into the room puffing and with certain hurry.

"We have to get out of here quick, before management comes. I'm sorry, kids, but we've got to pack our stuff again."

The Does could get their hands to it immediately but the Conaghers couldn't. They had to wait until Medic came back from their room. Since Scout carried practically nothing with him, he had already starting packing the children's luggage. On one side of the room lied the corpse of the man who had broken in.

"He asked us to shoot him; we didn't do it so he bit his tongue," he told them, "He preferred to die before speaking..."

While they collected their things, after a short moment of silence, Scout spoke again.

"I'm sorry for you, all the crap you have to go through. I told Medic you, Lincoln and Reagan would be better off with some relative, but he says..."

"No," Irene interrupted him, "We don't have anyone apart from RED. And I think there's no place we can be more protected than here with you."

"Anyway, you really think we can remain in a place when our parents are captive?" Minnie added.

Scout nodded and he never brought up the subject again.

"They're gonna ask so many things if we don't hurry. If they didn't call the police already..."

But the group was on a bus headed for the South by the time the corpses were found. The costumers which were interrogated said that a policewoman had assured them that one of the children was watching an action movie with the volume too up and they believed it because they all looked like little rogues.

"Leave me your cell phone," Medic asked Gwen, "I'm going to try and contact Spy."

The children had fallen asleep. Reagan had his head on his shoulder and Medic wrapped his arm around him.

"Scarlet." Finally a familiar voice said from the other side of the line.

"Letter." Medic replied. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, what about you? Did something happen around there?"

"Someone came into our rooms with unfriendly purposes, yes. Thank you for calling in the right moment, by the way. Opportune as always."

"De rien. We will have to hide from people from now on."

"What did you find out?"

"That Well seemed to be a mere stop, that the activity concentrates in Coal Town."

"Gray, then?"

"If not him, some nostalgic."

"How I want to go through all that again...Well, what do you propose we should do now?"

"Let's go visit Hale to equip us properly and warn him. If they are back, he must know."


	10. Chapter 10

"Pyro. Thanks for coming."

Heavy closed his eyes. He wasn't a man who hoped for things, he never was, but he had expected that beast called Pyro to repel them when they came to her. Were Medic and Spy there too?...Did the whole team fall? He couldn't have said if that would have been a good or a bad thing.

Inside his cell, Dell raised his head and slowly stood up. 'Pyro', his lips vocalized.

He didn't hear any words from her or the interlocutor, because Pyro didn't give cause for her to be convinced. The rage she had slowly cooked exploded in the very moment she had the one who had destroyed her peace and her family's in front of her. Those who were locked up heard a wild cry.

And immediately after it, a shot.

"Pyro! PYRO!"

Engineer turned around, hitting the walls without finding a way out, calling her endlessly.

"Bring the engineer."

Light filled the room all of a sudden, leaving Dell stunned. A mechanic Soldier dragged him out and through a nude, empty corridor. Dell didn't stop fighting and calling Pyro's name.

They took him to the same chamber the encounter had taken place days before. There lied his wife, writhed on the floor, holding her stomach. The one to blame for that, the Robot Sniper which had brought her there, still holding a rifle on its hands. Dell tried to run to her but the Soldier restrained him and he could only kick in the air and scream.

"Pyro! Pyro! Pyro!"

"The Mecha Sniper had orders to shoot if she got too agitated, I suppose you'll understand. But don't be afraid, Mister Conagher. We have some Medics. They can save her..."

Dell stopped fighting. His breathing trembled. He was exhausted. He couldn't take it any longer.

"...If you collaborate..."

Soldier wished to find himself in front of that woman again, even if that was only an image in a screen, to tear her into pieces with his fists.

 _No, Engie, don't fall for that. Be strong, damn you..._

Dell didn't reply immediately. His body, including his brain, seemed to have stopped working. He forced himself to answer before the proposition expired, pressed by the blood that wouldn't stop coming out of Pyro's body. She turned towards him with an imploring look.

"...I'll...do what you want..."

Soldier shook his head and sighed.

"You did the sensible thing, sir. Your friend Demoman resisted and that only served him to find his death. As for the Scout, he thought he could escape and got nothing but shared the same luck. Too many lives have been lost already."

Sniper bit his under lip.

That was enough. Just by pressing a button, those inside their cells were isolated and deaf again. And by pressing another, a Robot Medic came into the room, took Pyro in its arms effortlessly, with delicacy, and left the room. Although Dell wanted to follow her and never leave her alone anymore, and certainly could have done it because the Robot Soldier had released him, he wasn't able to get up from the floor.

"Alright. My Medics will get you back to shape. They will show you all you need to know. Then, you will start working. Your main task will be maintaining and improving the robots but there's a matter you have to take care of before that. Your old friend Medic. We believe that your children joined him. You will see it yourself. See this as a chance to see them again and put them in a safe place. Bring us the Medic."

Dell didn't react.

"I guess it is not necessary to tell you that you have to be very careful what you do. The lives of so many people are now in your hands."


	11. Chapter 11

"Running away, running away, running away all the time. This sucks! If this is what mercs do, I'd rather work in a notions store," Minnie complained with her arms crossed.

"I agree. I don't know why we have to flee all the time," Lincoln joined, "What we have to do is face the enemy, no more fooling around!"

"Well, that's what we're up to. Attack." Gwen said to them. "But right now we're in no condition to fight anybody, and less an army, which is what we'll most probably find. That's why we're meeting Saxton Hale."

"Who's Saxton Hale?" Irene asked.

"Who's Saxton Hale, what did our parents do...Don't you know anything?" Lincoln frowned, which earned him a punch from Minnie. (However, he was right: their parents hadn't told them anything at all and now they were so lost with all those names and dates.)

"Saxton Hale is Mann Co.'s owner." Gwen explained to them patiently. "He gave your parents the weapons they needed for their battles. Eighteen years ago, Gray Mann stole his place and acquired full control over the company."

"Gray Mann...The one with the robots, right?" Reagan asked from the rocket ride which was near the automatic doors of the store.

"Yep."

"Will that Hale guy give us what we need? Are you sure?" Minnie asked.

"Pretty sure. Your parents helped him get Mann Co. back, so he won't refuse to give us a hand now that the threat is back. And if it's true what they say about him, he'll be charmed to kick a few asses himself."

Scout and Medic finally walked out of the store with all necessary: tents, sleeping bags, a portable stove, food...

"Ah, and I bought _Bonk!_ too. There was a 3x2 offer."

They may have got there faster by plane, but after what happened two days before, not even the children thought that was an option. So, instead of an hotel, a road hostel or a rented house, that night they rested outdoors. Even though that was a situation not all of us liked, Wilbur felt his spirits rise substantially since they settled up the camping. He hadn't been in one for three years and that brought him so many memories: the toasted marshmallows, his father playing the guitar, the stars over their heads, the sounds of nature and animals around them...It wasn't the same but in a way they were in family indeed.

They cooked the meat on the fire as the sun set in the horizon. Scout had the weapon they had stolen from the attacker in the hotel on his lap, in case something happened. And it was evident that holding a rifle again brought many memories to his mind.

"Picture that," he narrated to Reagan, the only one who had enough patience to listen to the words that came out of his uncle's mouths like the bullets of a machine gun, "nine beast onto me, I carried the briefcase on my back, didn't see a freakin' teammate who could help me out, had to make every shot worth because I had no more ammo. What would you have done?"

"Run! Run like a hare in a hunting party!" Reagan bounced. One could say he lived the situation as if he was there.

"And that's what I did! Run like mad! I didn't even stop when some guy got in my way: I ran over him!"

Medic let Archimedes peck at the food on his hand and turned to Irene.

"I see you a bit blue."

"I'm alright. It's just the sleep imbalance..."

"Yes, sure. Tomorrow in the afternoon, if everything goes well, we'll be at Mann Co.'s headquarters. We will rest, arm and free your parents. I've been thinking about it and I suppose you five will have to help. Your parents will probably kill us for putting you in danger but there's no choice."

"No, it's okay. We want to help in any way we can."

"We're few enough to reject some more hands...Now that I think of it," Medic adjusted his glasses and looked at his niece with an expression that fascinated her, because she had seen him smile in a few occasions but that was a sincere and very wide smile, "miss Penn told me you want to be a nurse."

"Yes...If those gifts you sent us were an attempt to get us interested in Medicine, you sure got me."

"That was not my intention. I simply thought they bought you enough plushies, dolls and junk of the kind. But I am glad that it was so. Being a Medic is a very tough and ungrateful job. 'Medic!' here, 'Medic!' there, till they drive you mad. All shots go to you and your teammates get angry if you don't cure their wounds. And they don't understand that you have to take care of eight big _dummkopfs_ as well as your own back. Something big is coming and I sense I will have so much work to do. Not only healing. After being dragged into this madness again, I'm not going to say no to making some heads roll. It would be nice to have someone who can help me stop bleedings, cut limbs and warn me about any movement."

"I...I'm flattered that you thought of me...It would be great, but...I've never done anything like that...I've applied band-aid and mercurochrome to my siblings but a scratch's not the same as..."

"There's always a first time."

"Well...If you think I can be useful..."

"Sure you can."

"Of course. Because I'm daughter of..."

"No. I trust you because I see a restless mind. That's saying something in these times and among this kind of peopl."

"Eh, if she helps you, I'm building sentries." Minnie irrupted into the conversation. "I'm serious. Dad taught me. If Hale gives me the tools, I can fill those walking coffee pots with lead."

"That's what I like!" Medic exclaimed. "You're both good girls."

Wilbur looked at his uncle with a pout.

"You're also a good boy." he said to him, patting his shoulder, and that enough to content him.

They still asked themselves what they would do with him, too soft to join the massacre, but they would sure find something he could do. They'll ponder about it later.

"When will we see Spy again?" Reagan asked Lincoln before tearing off a piece of meat and chewing it.

"Soon, I guess." he replied.

"He's a snob but I like him."

"He's not a bad guy." Gwen nodded and then turned to Scout. "He told me you tease him a lot. Poor man."

"I got my reasons," he defended himself, "the main one: he's a prick."

"Oh, baby." Gween gave him a little pinch in the neck which Reagan noticed Scout received with a smile.

They had their dinner and Spy hadn't shown signs of life yet. Scout insisted to the children that they had nothing to be afraid of, that he was alright for sure, and told them incredible stories about him, though that didn't stop him from portraying him as a quirky and grumpy idiot. They went to sleep soon to continue their way as soon as possible; of course, one of them would guard.

That person was Medic, not for his own initiative but imposition. However, he ended up being a bit glad that it was his turn because that gave him time to rest from those noisy kids. Archimedes, loyal to him, perched on his shoulder and curled up against himself until he was a ball. Medic sniffed some more vapor from his Medi Gun too. It would help him stay awake. And he would also think freely.

It was probable that in a few days some of his partners and himself ended up dead. Nevertheless, the idea of facing Gray's army again, or even dying in the attempt, didn't scare him. He supposed that was an undeniable sign that he was grown old, as well as all the stuff he had gone through. Now, of course, even with the idea of death in his head or being old, he still had enough will and energy to take some with him.

He didn't have time to think much more. The sound of steps alerted him. Medic stood up, making Archimedes wake up and flap his wings, and grabbed his rifle.

There was a ghost in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Doc."

The German couldn't react.

Wilbur got out of the tent barely able to keep his eyes open. The urge to pee had interrupted his sleep.

He froze when he saw Medic lying on the ground, Archimedes hooting next to him and with them...

"Pop?"

That blond beard in which time had started to add a few white hairs. Those blue eyes. That bald head. Wilbur's heart bounced.

It was him! It could only be him!

"Daddy! Pop!"

He wanted to run and hug him, but that was something his sisters had to see. They wouldn't believe it. Wilbur came back into the tent with the speed of a missile and pounced on his sisters, almost crushing them.

"Minnie! Ri Ri! Wake up! Daddy's here! Daddy's come!"

The girls jumped out of their sleep. They didn't believe him, they insisted that it was a dream.

"He's outside!"

In the end, Irene put her glasses on and took a look out of the tent. When they got out, however, there was no one.

"Pop?" Wilbur called, walking around.

He couldn't explain that.

"But he was here...I saw him. It wasn't a dream. Right, Archimedes?"

The bird tilted its head from the ground.

"Wait, where's the uncle?" Minnie asked.

Gwen put her head out her tent.

"What's all that fuss about?" she asked.

"I saw Dad! He was here!" Wilbur told her.

"Well, Medic isn't." Minnie added. "I don't see him anywhere."

"Crap...Crap, crap, crap..." Gwen leaned inside her tent again. "Scout! Wake up!"

It took a lot for Scout to get up, but Gwen brightened up immediately and quickly left the tent.

"Kids, get into the tent with your cousins. Now. Run. I'm sure that was a Robot Spy with your father's appearance. Scout! They took Medic away, Scout!"

The Does had been also woken up by the noise and when the Conaghers came into their tent, they asked Wilbur to tell them everything he had seen.

"Those things can disguise themselves?" Minnie was terrorized. She grabbed her little brother and didn't let him go. "Holy shit, that could have killed you!"

"It was no robot! It was Pop! Really!" Wilbur insisted.

"They're perfect copies, there's no way to tell the difference." Lincoln said. "Damn...We're screwed without Medic now..."

"What are we going to do now?" Minnie asked.

"I guess we'll have to hurry. It's evident that they know where we are all the time."

He and Reagan had courage running through their veins, their parents had taught them since they were born not to have fear under any circumstance, no matter how ugly it seemed, but the Conaghers hadn't received such heritage, so they cringed and remained deathly quiet.


	12. Chapter 12

Spy needed a good dose of nicotine more than ever. After exhaling the smoke he covered his face with one hand and answered to Gwen.

"Make a detour. Try to be unpredictable and avoid shortcuts."

"Do you think that will help us?"

"Honestly, I don't know. But you'll have to try."

"Yeah, I guess. I'd rather be surrounded by all people possible, though. Only, after what I've seen, that won't probably scare them...Listen, Spy."

Gwen turned towards the children for an instant and when she saw that no one was paying attention to her, she added:

"Do you really think it was no robot? That was the real Engineer, flesh and blood?"

"You heard Scout. They offered the prisoners to join them."

"But how could he accept?"

"Don't think it is impossible. All men have a limit."

"This is getting really ugly, Spy. I know you don't want my colleagues from Reno to get involved but...Tell me you'll be back soon, at least."

"I can tell you but that doesn't mean I will be able to do it. I already told you: I am on my way. We will meet at Mann Co."

Spy heard Gwen's sigh.

"Do me a favor, put Scout on the phone."

"Coming."

Gwen reunited with the group and gave the cell phone to Scout, who moved away because Spy told him to hear what he had to say.

"Jeremy."

"Say."

"If you find a gun shop on your path, get ammunition for the weapon you stole, in case you need to fire and fall short."

"Alright, now tell me something that ain't obvious."

"Did they study you with X rays when you were at the hospital?"

"Eh, yeah."

"And they didn't find anything out of common?"

"No."

"Well, in any case it wouldn't be too much if you underwent a second exam, you felt yourself or whatever. We must be sure you don't have a location device in some part of your body."

"Jesus, Spy, you think...?"

"Yes. You don't know what they did to you while you were unconscious."

"Eh...Okay...I'll check, just in case, to peace of mind. Anything else?"

"Yes. I already told Gwen that I suspect that the one who stole Medic was the real Engineer."

"But how would Engie do that, man? Whatcha...?"

"Shut up and listen. Don't trust anybody. Absolutely no one."

"Does that allow me to punch you in the face when I see you, in case?"

"Precisely."

"Ah, really? Oh...Well...Alright..."

"I will see you in some hours, with a bit of luck. Be careful."

"Eh, Spy. You too. I don't want to lose my...either..."

The sentence died there; Spy didn't insist to get it complete, although his lips formed a smile. He just hanged up.

Since the cigarette was almost consumed, he took a long drag and threw it out of the wagon. He hated to get his suit dirty for sitting down on that filthy floor but in that position he went unnoticed. He still held his watch close in case a supervisor came to check the merchandise.

That train stopped approximately four miles away from Mann Co.'s headquarters. Having all possible delays on account, in the most catastrophic of cases, he could get there at nine hours fifteen minutes of that day. Which was good news. But in spite of that pleasant perspective, he felt very uneasy because of the news he had received.

Maybe because of that, because of the worry he had to keep away from his mind like an obnoxious fly, he noticed the movement when it was too late. He aimed at the Robot Spy which crept through the ceiling of the wagon, still translucent, but it pounced on him before he could fire.

* * *

Reagan carried Archimedes on his shoulder. The dove had chosen him as his new human pet, even if Reagan caressed him in a kind of brute way. For her part, Irene carried Medic's luggage, which was mainly composed by his bonesaw and his Medi Gun. She did it with a certain reverence, as if those were objects of great value for which Medic had named her custodian. In some way, maybe that was the situation. He wanted her to be his assistant. When the master is absent, the helper takes charge, isn't that so?

"From now on, we won't separate, not even to go to the toilet." she heard Gwen say.

She saw her tense. Until Spy returned, she and Scout were in charge. Even though she fulfilled her responsibility well, obviously she had never imagined she would have to assume it. She valued Spy and Medic's capacity to overcome any situation very much, and circumstances had showed it wasn't so. Because of the age, which diminished faculties, or because the enemy was tougher this time, maybe a combination of those two, one of the veterans had fallen. Gwen prayed to see Spy again soon. Only to be sure the situation wasn't that extreme.

"Are we there yet?" Reagan asked.

Oh, no, God, don't let the children get annoying. Not now.

"See that road?" Scout pointed at him. "If we follow it, we'll be there in less than two hours."

"We're so, so close then." Minnie said, letting out her relief.

Scout offered himself to carry Reagan on his shoulders but he refused, saying that he was a tough guy who wasn't scared by a long walk. Curiously, he and his brother were the ones who resisted that journey the best. Nor the lack of sleep, the continuous transfers nor the walks got to weaken them. Scout was well because he was used to working out a lot, but he had in mind asking Hale as soon as he saw him for a bed on which he could lay down and sleep half day.

Gwen's cell phone rang.

Did something happen? That was the question that crossed everyone's mind. Spy said all he needed to say in a single call and days could pass until they contacted him again. If there was something else he had to say, they hoped it was good, at least.

But Gwen noticed that she knew the number which appeared on the screen.

"Tell me, Tim."

The others calmed down and kept walking. Of course it couldn't be Spy. He had already said: they would see him at Mann Co.

"Gwen, I found DeGroot. But I don't know if it's good or bad news for you."

However, Gwen's expression turned so shocked that they kept listening, to see if they caught something.

"Where? Where is he?"

They saw her pressing her lips and take deep breath.

"Alright...Yes. Okay. So, they haven't...? Sure...Thanks, Tim. From the bottom of my heart."

The young woman hanged. She took her time to give the group an explanation.

"They found Demoman. You were right, Scout. They killed him."


	13. Chapter 13

Medic remained impassible, calm, even. Maybe a bit irritated at the blow he had received when he fell unconscious to the ground and the circumstances he was into, but, in the end, he remained completely calm. He looked at his interlocutor straight to the eyes.

"You hid well these last years."

"I had to. I'm wanted in six countries," he commented with a grin.

"We know it. That's why I'm happy to have you here at last. Even though you've been very discreet about your findings, you're notable. I admire you. With all honesty."

"You will make me blush. But there is something else you need to know about me, and that is I don't like people beating me around the bush."

"Alright. I will be direct, then. We need you to do us a favor. It won't be difficult for you: you will have all time and resources you need. Money is not a problem."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course you have."

"Collaborating with you or death, I suppose."

"You're very sharp, doctor."

Even after that affirmation, Medic smiled.

"Of course."

"But allow me to add a small shade: you would be sacrificing your own life...and your young friends'."

Medic's expression froze. Even if his smile didn't change a bit, the other person knew she had finally touched that button.

"You're very brave. You don't mind dying. But are you that ready to give up the lives of your teammates' children? Your only family, in a way? Youngsters who trusted you? Do you think your partners...would ever forgive you?"

Medic made an effort to held her stare.

"What would I have to do?"

"You brought a partner back from the dead. The only thing I'm asking you is to do it again."

A Robot Heavy came into the room with what seemed like a metallic chest, left it on the floor carefully in front of Medic and opened it.

The German found himself in front of the perfectly embalmed corpse of Gray Mann.

The old man seemed to be immersed in a very unpleasant dream and held in his fingers a jar in which his brains were preserved.

"Bring my father back."

* * *

No one complained about turning off when they were less than a hundred miles away from their destiny. There was not a single word of protest. In fact, there was not a word.

The morgue was near the place Scout had known as Gorge. There, precisely, was where they found Demo. One of the managers told everything to Gwen: a group of minors had sneaked into the facilities to goof around, because one of them had tossed someone's cap inside or something of the sort, and there they found the body lying on his back over the little water remaining under the bridge which connected the two buildings. The boys wouldn't have told anybody if it wasn't for the restless conscience of one of them. Since the man didn't carry anything that could identify him, the police was consulted and was finally recognized as an old fugitive, Tavish DeGroot.

Gwen heard everything the manager told her in silence. Luckily, he told her everything he knew without having to ask anything. He was more than eager to collaborate with the police.

They hadn't been able to practice the autopsy yet because they had a quite gruesome and well-known issue in their hands which required all focus, but in a few hours they were sure they could open the body to determine the cause of his death. The first examination at the crime scene determined that he had been there for days, and that the cause of death was probably bleeding. Although there was a chance that the youngsters had moved the corpse, so drowning was also a possibility. In other words, despite his looks, the wounds didn't kill him instantly.

Gwen told the manager an excuse and he allowed her to take a look at the dead man. She had been chasing him for years, she said, and needed to know everything about his death, so she wanted to see the corpse. When the man left to let her work, Gwen helped Scout and the children sneak in.

The group gathered around the tray of the mortuary refrigerator. Gwen was in charge of pulling the sheet which covered him.

Uncle Tav had some more wrinkles than the last time they saw him, but alcohol had preserved him well. Irene was shocked to see the jolly Scot with a bluish skin, swollen and his body full of perforations, one of them in the skull, that she felt a lump in her throat and her eyes got wet. Those wounds weren't fatal, they said; that meant they had left him there, completely defenseless, until he bled off. Uncle Tav, dead in such a way...How horrible...

Wilbur saw that Gwen looked away from the dead and walked to a corner, her throat up and down. She remained firm and angry, but she seemed to be on the edge of tears.

Scout sniffed, looking at his old partner and friend. He couldn't believe it. He simply couldn't believe it. After all they had been through, the shit they had escaped from...He would have never thought there would come the day when he would see Demo in a morgue. "I always thought alcohol would kill you, mate, but I was wrong..."

Those old days came to his mind, when it was five in the morning and his partner was already glued to a rum bottle like a baby to their mom's teat. His gags when the enemies were screwing them. His laugh when he bombed them and made bleeding pieces rain. Those bad jokes he loved to tell. Oh, and when he cried, saying that he was a cyclops and black monster nobody loved. The best partner one could ever wish for. No. Friend. More than his partner, he was his friend. And now there he was, lying on a cold tray, his only eye closed forever. The other had to be in some unknown dimension, being a pain in the ass like always.

"I can't believe it...He can't be dead."

Lincoln looked at him. He hated people murmuring. The next time, Scout repeated his words louder, so that Lincoln couldn't complain and everybody else could hear.

"He can't be dead..."

Irene couldn't take it anymore and let go a few tears.

"I can't believe you're dead," Scout leaned towards Demo's body and talked directly to his face, "We've faced wizards, giant robots, ghosts, skeletons...And you always came out unscathed...You can't be dead...Not like this...Not this way..."

Minnie wanted to place her hand on his shoulder but she ended up drawing back and wrapping her arms around Wilbur and Reagan, who were looking at their uncle as if he had gone mad. He was. He had lost his mind.

"Come on, Scout, fuck..." Gwen protested from her corner.

"You told me you wanted to kick the bucket like many in your family, blowing into pieces," Scout kept talking to the corpse, now with his hands on his chest. His tone of voice was higher and higher, "Or from a heart attack after a wild night of sex. Or old and drink in some pub in Scotland. You can't die this way..."

"Scout, please..."

"Fucking shit, of course you can't be dead. This is a scare. Just one of those scares we had when you dozed, which Medic took advantage of to slit you open. It has to be that, it has to be that!"

The children walked away when Scout started to press Demoman's chest.

"Scout, holy shit, what are you doing?!" Gwen ran to him.

Scout pushed her away and continued. Had he had a bottle there, he would have poured its content inside his mouth and then crushed it on his head.

"Scout! Leave him!" Gwen yelled at him. She got to punch him in the face and Scout went on as if nothing had happened.

"Come on, Demo, get up! Get up, Demo! Fuck! Crap!"

His maneuvers were increasingly violent. There was a moment in which he was directly hitting. Gwen pounced on him and made him fall to the ground.

Then, the corpse took deep breath and opened his eye extra wide. Irene, Lincoln and Reagan screamed.

"Demo!" Scout exclaimed, getting up from the floor.

The Scottish man got up with difficulty and looked around completely confused. His eye fixed on each of the people inside the room, he observed them thoroughly, until he found Scout, the only one he knew.

"S-Scout?" he asked with hoarse voice.

Scout held onto the tray and hit his forehead softly against it, biting his under lip. His eyes were still wet.

"I knew dying this way was not your style..."

"Dying? What...? Wait...That witch..That...Mann! I found 'em on me way home! They left me unconscious and took me to that rat hole...! Olivia Mann! I didn't want to join her and her critters left me like a sieve! Where am I? What are those kids doing here?"

"Easy, easy, man. Those are Engie and Pyro and Soldier's children."

Demoman turned towards the children again. They approached a little but not too much. The uncle was still very stunned and nervous.

"I never needed a drink more in my life..."

"I know, I know. They gave you water and actual food, right? Don't worry, we'll find a liquor shop somewhere. You'll be fine."

Scout patted his back with a smile that could barely show how relieved he felt. He was still trembling a bit.

Gwen had remained in a certain distance until she finally believed that Demoman was alive, that his brain was working more or less. She would ponder about what she just saw later. She had waited so long for that moment. It was funny: so much time dreaming about finding him and now she was reluctant to move.

She approached and Demoman watched that young girl.

"Tavish Finnegan DeGroot. I have been looking for you for eight years."

Demoman didn't seem to know what to do or say. Finally, he went for smiling.

"Oh, yeah?" he purred.

"Yes."

"If you're an angel who's taking me to Heaven, I'll gladly stop me heart again."

"I am no angel. My name is Gwen Penn. Nevada Police. In 1965 you spent the night in Las Vegas to squander a money you had earned improperly in an illegal casino; had sex with two women in the rear seats of a stolen vehicle you got rid of in the desert, whose trunk was filled with explosives; threatened a barman who had served you an uninspired cocktail with a millennial sword; occupied a suit after tossing the guest through the window, a senator..."

The smile was wiped off the old mercenary's face.

"W-Wait, wait...That happened so long ago...All of that must have prescribed..." Demoman shook his hands.

"The hell they prescribed, **dad**."

A weird screech was heard, which turned out to be the laugh Wilbur and Reagan couldn't contain when they saw Demoman's jaw drop, just like in cartoons. And Scout's face was no less funny.


	14. Chapter 14

As a reward for having brought Medic, Dell was allowed to pay Pyro a brief visit so that he felt calmer about her state.

They had her in a room as gray as the rest of the building. Not even one of the walls was without a shelving, which contained jars which were either empty or filled with colored liquids and pieces of...who knew what; surgical instruments whose end didn't seem to be saving lives as much as stealing them in the most painful way possible; old and new books and devices. Three Robot Medics roamed the room, concentrated on different tasks, mostly inventory. One of them left its chore from time to time to supervise Pyro, who occupied the only bed in the room, in the middle of it. When Dell came in, the robot had just changed her bandages and was still holding them in its hands ready to throw them away. As Dell approached her, he noticed clearer the soft grunt emerging from her throat, like the sound of an engine. In spite of all the sedatives inside her body, they had only soothed her wrath partially.

Dell tried to ignore that all those robots were looking at him and focused on his wife.

"Pyro. Honey."

She stared at him dizzily and tried to get up unsuccessfully.

"Dell..."

"Don't move, don't move. How are you?"

He was alright, at least that was what it seemed. Pyro felt every inch of his face, looking for scratches, bruises, blood. She saw nothing and that was a relief. But it didn't calm her down completely. They both joined in an embrace as strong as Pyro's little might allowed them.

"Dell, the children..."

"They're alright. The children are alright. They'll be back home soon." Dell held her hands and kissed them. "You'll be back home. I promise, dear. Everything will be alright."

Pyro gave him a questioning look to which he responded with a kiss in her pale forehead.

" _Movement detected._ "

Dell didn't turn towards the door. He said goodbye to her with another kiss. Although Pyro tried to retain him by her side, Dell took advantage that she practically had no strength to push her away softly. Through whispers, he got to make her lie down and leave her as calm as possible. He made the Robot Spy get out to talk without her hearing anything.

"They told me I had ten minutes." Dell complained. But, of course, one couldn't argue with a minion, and less when it was nothing but a bunch of metal.

" _There has been a variation in the expected course."_

Dell grudgingly nodded.

" _The Maker is about to send a spying unit to intercept the rest of the members of the group."_

"Only one? You can't beat Spy with just one. He's very sneaky."

" _The spy has already been subdued._ "

Dell licked his lips in silence.

" _Unless you consider there is a more adequate class for this mission_."

"No. I will go personally. I will handle this."

" _Wrong. The Maker gave orders about–_ "

"Listen here, Tin Man." Dell took a step forward. His size was inferior to the robot's but he didn't show any kind of inferiority. "Your maker put me in charge of you so that you do things right. That gang has rejected all your attacks. You don't know them. Not like I do. I remind you that I brought three of those to the world. And I don't know the other kids that well but I did work side by side with their parents for years. The woman who goes with them, I don't know who she is, but if she's been with Spy and Medic, they must have told her how to get rid of you. Of you and the stupid mercenaries your maker has found. If she's afraid that I betray her, she already knows she doesn't have anything to worry about because everything was clear from the start. We have a deal and Dell Conagher never breaks his promises. So do me a favor and move your metallic ass to her office, you tell her everything and see what she says. I'm not gonna argue with you."

The robot remained still, his circuits working with a bit of difficulty. Eventually, when he finished processing his words, it said: " _I will pass your request to the Maker._ "

And with that it walked away from sight.

Dell sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. How he hated those machines. The pleasurable feeling when his sentries tore them to pieces hadn't faded with time, and now he wised to make scrap metal with them more than ever. But he would have to put up with it. For his family. His family depended on that.

He heard how they tortured one of the boys the previous day. Washington, fourteen year-old, had been brave and mixed the cries of pain with promises of a revenge which seemed wrong in a boy his age. Dell had heard nothing from the corridor, but was sure that in some of the cells his parents, brothers and also his uncle were wrecking their fists and throats in vain. He would have done the same in their place. Only that thinking that his daughters and son could have been in the boy's place...That was a thought he didn't even want to consider.

The only think he could think about was his family, but if the rest of the Does were with his children, he wouldn't forget about them. As much as his obsession was to keep his loved ones safe, he couldn't refuse doing a favor to Soldier's children, Heavy's nephews. If miss Mann allowed him to participate in the chase, he would manage to help them all. The children.

As for the woman, he had no idea of who she was, but if he had to kill her, his hand wouldn't shake; if he had to send her to one of those cells, he would drag her from her hair himself. Whatever Mann told him.

* * *

"I guess you have had enough time to arrange your thoughts."

Yes, well, unable to sleep, fed with rubbish which only got to turn their stomach, one couldn't have their thoughts very clear. Sniper would have smiled if he could. He felt tired, terribly tired and dirty. He had reached that bloody point in which he had lost all sense of time and had to remind himself what his name and origins were from time to time. He had to admit that the bitch did things right.

"I'm going to be honest with you, even if that goes against myself," Sniper said with a hoarse voice due to the thirst, "I don't know why the hell you want me to join you. Your robots have a perfect aim."

"Yes, that's true, and I'm thankful for your honesty. But your worth doesn't only consist on your aim. Machines can't have a complex thinking, they are not creative. You're a professional and have many more qualities apart from hitting the target. I keep your files from the times when you worked for Mann Co., you know? And it says you're a very good tracker."

"Yeah."

"Tracker and professional. I admire professionalism very much, Mr. Mundy. That's why I want you in my team...Unless, apart from professionalism, you have a fixed set of values."

"Values, feelings, all that's been useless in my job, miss. I don't know if it's around my files, but I've always been sold to the highest bidder."

"Good to know. So, can we count on you? Or would you prefer keeping the Scout and the Demoman company?"

Sniper kept an expression close to indifference.

"I'm not afraid of dying. I know what's on the other side and I'm not afraid to jump in. But I accept."

A Robot Spy appeared on the screen and talked to Olivia Mann in the ear. She was pensive and then made a gesture to the machine to leave.

"It seems you already have a mission assigned. I'm sorry I can't give you more time to tidy yourself but we have a group to intercept. The children of your teammates and a police agent. We are going to send a Spy unit to intercept them, and your partner, Mister Conagher, insisted on going, a family matter. You will go with them. Conagher mustn't know. If you see any small act of treason against us, shoot him."

Sniper didn't seem to react to that order.

"I hope you have no qualms about it."

"Conagher stopped being my partner years ago. Now it's only one more head."

"What I said: you're a professional. I like it. I'm sure you and I are going to have a pretty nice relationship."

Sniper walked out the room guarded by a Robot Pyro. Even thought it was giving instructions to him, his mind was elsewhere. He had a plan to kill everyone he met and Olivia Mann was no exception.


	15. Chapter 15

Demoman was in shock. Irene and Lincoln had to hold him as they crossed the corridors heading towards the exit, his legs still wobbled like butter. Since the poor Scotsman's brain seemed to be frozen again, Gwen waited until they were outdoors to sit him in a nearby park, lonely and quiet, to explain it all to him slowly.

"Mom was in a bachelorette party when you found her and seduced her and one of her friends. She was the bride. Two months later she found out she was pregnant and you were gone by then. Her husband accepted to raise me as his own daughter but the truth is he never treated me like one: he was never nice to me and from time to time he called me a cuckoo (I understood why with time). But I believed he was my father, and also that I was so dark because Mom had taken too much sun. I was a kid after all. When he got sick eight years ago, he got even leaving us out of his will and giving it all to his sister. I bet he was so pleased, that big motherfucker. He spilled out all of it in his last will. Mom had no choice but tell me the truth. She told me everything she knew you, which wasn't much. I got into the police academy not much after that. I guess I expected you to come through that door handcuffed one day, or that I'd see your face in a 'wanted' sign. In the end, I decided to hire a detective who could give me a clue about your whereabouts. I tried some, but none of them could tell me anything. Some of them even ended up dead for nosing around. Until I found Spy like a year ago. He gave me biological samples of you with which I could make a DNa test and confirm what Mom told me, and helped me find you. When I knew something had happened to you, I decided to join the search."

Demoman was still froken. Reagan gave him a few soft punches in the arm without getting him to react. Then, Demoman started crying like a little girl.

"I couldn't call...We had a mission the following day in New Mexico...I...I'm so sorry that...Oh, my daughter, my lassie..." he couldn't continue because he threw himself into Gwen's arms.

The young lady was tense. For a moment it almost seemed as she was going to push him away with a punch and certainly the idea had crossed her mind. But that man had filled her mind for years, her only objective for a long time had been to find him. What for? Nothing, really. She expected him to avoid the matter, to behave like a prick even. The only thing she wanted was to see him with her own eyes to live in peace, knowing that at least her father was in this world. And there he was now, bawling in her arms. How could she be mad at him? So Gwen held him tight and caressed his curly hair.

"There, there. It doesn't matter now. I understand."

"So good that your grandma isn't here anymore because she would've skinned me..." Demoman whispered. That idea made him raise his head all of a sudden and look around as if some ghouls were haunting him. "Sssh! Hush, hush! Her spirit might be among us..."

"Mom is going to skin you." Gwen smiled.

"Ah, aye, your mother...Ehm...Perhaps...You could intercede in my favor..."

Scout had remained very quiet since he heard Gwen's words. He did nothing but look at her and Demo respectively, surely looking for similarities. Not that there were many but there they were, subtle. It wasn't the color of the eyes, the skin or the shape of the face but the way of smiling, of looking, of moving. She had grown without knowing her father but all of that had passed to her somehow through her genes. Finally, when silence came, he bursted against his old teammate.

"So, you went to Las Vegas on our free days and screwed every chick you found! You bastard!"

"I was drunk, surely!"

"And when were you drunk!?"

"Cool, we have girl cousin!" Wilbur was so excited he clapped.

Only Reagan was as much excited about the news. The older boys weren't still very sure about how to feel. Too many emotions in a few hours.

Demoman kept caressing Gwen's cheeks and hair, calling her 'my girl', 'my little one' and other loving names; Gwen let him do it and from time to time, with a smile, replied: 'daddy'. Lincoln had to clear his throat to get their attention.

"Well, now that uncle Demo is alive, we'll have to move, right?"

"Eh...Yeah, yeah, of course." Gwen nodded, moving away from Demoman. "You see, dad, we were marching towards Mann Co.'s headquarters to ask Saxton Hale for help."

"Hale? You were going to recur to Hale? But, what about the others?" Demoman asked, looking at all of them.

"Medic got captured."

"Doc? Bloody hell..."

"And Spy, we agreed we would meet him in..."

"Ahem."

Irene and Lincoln jumped. Spy was next to them with his arms crossed and looking at Demoman with a fine smile.

"Waking up in the morning at a morgue. I see some things never change."

"Darn, Spy!" Demoman greeted him. "Still giving us the frights, eh, lad?!" he laughed as he shook his hand and gave him a friendly pat in the back.

"Same as you, it seems. Didn't these incompetent see that you were not dead?"

"What are you doing here?" Gwen asked. "How did you know that...?"

"Spies, like wizards, never reveal our secrets."

Minnie approached Spy.

"Hey, why didn't you tell us that Gwen was...?"

The girl fell quiet and with her mouth open. Irene saw that she wasn't looking at Spy, but at someone who was behind him. And she was also shocked.

"Da...Dad?!" Minnie exclaimed.

All of them turned towards the man who remained at a certain distance. Even though Scout and Demoman seemed to be back from the dead, Dell only had eyes for his three children. She drew a smile with difficulty and opened his arms. The girls were too stunned to move but Wilbur didn't think it.

"Dad! You're back! Spy brought you!"

"WILBUR, WILBUR, WAIT!" Scout suddenly yelled.

Spy took two revolvers and shot Gwen and Scout before none of them could move, making its flesh disguise disappear. It got Gwen in a shoulder. Scout, in the belly, almost right in the navel. As he fell to the ground, the youngest of the mercenaries heard in his ears the last words he heard Spy say to him: 'Trust no one', as if he was repeating them to him in his ear.

Demoman grabbed Scout's rifle and, even though those kind of weapons were not his specialty, he aimed at the robot with it. A shot was heard and the content of the metallic head was spread on the grass. Demoman spinned around himself with worry. He hadn't pulled the trigger.

"Sniper?", his lips muttered. Sniper read them. And grinned. But his smile didn't live longer than a few fractions of second because, when he looked for Dell through the sight, he didn't find him. Not him nor the children. Where were they? He couldn't find them anywhere. He hoped that...

 _Click_

He didn't turn around. He felt the cold metal of a pistol against his nape.

He shot again, this time aiming at Demoman. The shot got him in a leg.

The Robot Scout remained still for some moments, as if he was pondering, and finally stopped aiming at Sniper and met the others. Sniper breathed deep.

He stood up again, shook the dirt out of his pants and clothes and followed the robot. An army had surrounded them and was getting ready for their moving. Gwen had picked up her weapon and used it with her left hand, she got to shoot one of the robots in the chest but her weapon was taken soon and was reduced. In spite of the pain, Scout kicked and punched, also in vain. Demoman, held by four robots, tossed and turned and cursed. When he saw Sniper, he became petrified, shook his head softly, not believing what his only eye was seeing, and his bewilderment bursted into rage.

"Demo...Scout...Crickey...I thought you were dead."

"YOU'RE GONNA BE DEAD! YOU! SON OF A BITCH! TRAITOR! BLOODY JUDAS! SELL OUT! HOW DARE YOU! GRAY'S HOUND! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU...!"

The group moved and Sniper was left behind. He didn't mind the rest of Demoman's enumeration, but still needed a bit of time to assimilate it. And assimilate how twisted that bitch was.

And Engie...

He inspected the surroundings and saw curious people but not Engie. Nor the kids. It seemed he had taken them away. In that case, he had to hurry, in order to catch them.


	16. Chapter 16

Medic checked his watch. Still no signs of life. Therefore, he applied a heart massage to stimulate the organ (yes, it turned out the old man had a heart, how crazy!).

The room was completely silent. The Robot Heavies which were stationed at the door didn't move but Medic knew they were operative and ready to slaughter him if he thought of making a false move. He was used to chat during his procedures, a way of letting of some steam, but Archimedes wasn't there and those nut bags were not a friendly company. Archimedes had more intelligence than them without any doubt.

It was precisely eleven at night when Gray Mann, as punctual as he was alive, suddenly opened his eyes and took air through his mouth.

Even though Medic couldn't celebrate that the man back back to Earth, he couldn't help smiling a little bit. He was still in fine shape.

Gray got up with difficulty and breathed repeatedly and desperately, getting back the habit. With trembling finders, he felt his chest and found some horrible bleeding scars. Then, the tembles, with showed similar marks, only hidden thanks to the hair.

"I am...alive..."

His eyes turned to Medic and next to the door of the room. Until then, Medic hadn't noticed that it was open and that there was someone there apart form the robots.

"Father."

"Olivia..."

Medic moved aside and cleaned up his instruments while Olivia and Gray Mann joined in an embrace. Charmingly horrendous, in the doctor's opinion. Gray's fingers touched every inch of his daughter's face and found it was soft as it was when she was a child. She still looked like a little doll, although she was a woman now. Her hair had grown to the back. She still preferred to wear a dress.

"You are gorgeous, my girl"

"How do you feel?"

"I feel nauseas. And my head's spinning."

"It's normal. You've been dead for eighteen years."

"Eighteen years...Time flies in Hell..." Gray sat with a grunt and Olivia helped him get up. Feeling the weight of his body again was a completely vertiginous thing.

"What happened in my absence? Helen...The Australium...Where are we? Who's that man?"

"Remember the mercenaries, father?" Olivia looked at Medic. He didn't turn around but he heard her tone of voice and distinguised perfectly a grudge and an evilness which confirmed that the woman had no good ideas inside of her head.

"Mercenaries? Mercenaries...Yes...I do remember them. How could I forget...Them and that girl with the glasses..."

"This is their doctor. He brought you back to life."

Gray looked at Medic, then at Olivia and smiled.

"And how come he is here and not with them? I wonder..."

"His team was dissolved. They don't work for Mann Co. anymore. Now their Medic is our and two more members too. If they were so smart, father, I thought they could be of much use. What do you think?"

"That gang of swines eating out of the palm of our hands...Ah, darling, I'm so proud of you."

"Oh, and talking about the mercenaries. Doctor."

Medic turned towards Olivia.

He supposed he wasn't useful anymore. The time to get rid of him as if he was a tissue had come.

He made sure he had the scalpel with which he had open Mann's chest near him.

"You've spent a whole day here, bringing my father back. And you did a great job. That's why I'm giving you a little reward."

Olivia snapped her fingers and three Robot Scout entered the room. Each of them dragged a prisoner: Demoman, Scout and Gwen. Medic noticed instantly that they were hurt.

Demoman gazed at Gray with his mouth open.

"Doc...What have you done?"

"I thought," Olivia said, "that it would be nice to distract yourself with your friends for a little while."

Gray Mann looked at the newcomers and rubbed his hands. Gwen didn't know him, she had only heard about him but that little man filled with recent scars, deadly pale and with avid eyes wasn't a feast to the eyes. As for Scout, the loss of blood was making him feel dizzy, but Gray still had an effect on him, provoking goosebumps on him.

Medic took a reluctant step towards them. Scout was the one who worried him the most. He didn't look good.

"No, no, no" Olivia stopped him, and the Mecha Heavies at the door aimed at him with their weapons. "I know you like healing but control yourself, doctor. Your friend will be alright. And if not, he should have thought twice before escaping."

"Are all of them here? All of those damned men?" Gray rubbed his hands, crazy with pleasure to see the mercenaries in his robots' clutches.

Olivia made a mere gesture, this time with the hand, and another robot came in, a spy, dragging Spy. When she saw him, Gwen whispered a curse. Scout felt a heavy weight inside his stomach when he thought of the children.

"Ah! Fantastic! Fantastic! This is my girl!" Gray celebrated it. Had he had more control over his body, he would have started dancing no doubt.

"Spy..." Olivia walked towards the prisoner, "I've wasted so much time looking for you..."

"Well, here I am." Spy didn't move. He held Olivia's stare fearlessly, with no affection. "Now what?"

"I never liked spies." Olivia approached him, put her hand inside the pocket in his jacket and took what looked like a watch: the Dead Ringer. "Sneaky, treacherous...You keep so many secrets and tricks, but that's not always good. I don't like having spies like you around."

She moved away from him, exchanged a brief glance with her father and made a gesture of superiority.

"I don't want to see him."

The Robot Spy understood immediately the order.

It was so quick no one could do anything. The next second, the blade had pierced Spy's neck. The robot let him drop to the floor and he didn't move anymore. Some instants passed in silence. It almost seemed as everybody expected Spy to stand up, to twist, to grunt. But there was no sign of life from him. Blood started spreading through the tiles. Gray interrupted the silence with a laughter.

"SPY! SPY!" Demoman howled, trying to break free. He almost did it, if it wasn't for the Robot Heavies coming to help the one who was holding him.

Gwen was also screaming, but incomprehensible words. She tried to fight as well. Scout was the only one who didn't move. His eyes were fixed on Spy.

It was all a trick, wasn't it? He was alive...Of course he was alive...It seemed so real that...Oh, God, he was alive, right?

Medic too didn't move or take his eyes out of the body which lied on the floor.

"You did very well, Olivia." Gray congratulated Olivia as they walked out of the room. "He would have been a problem sooner or later."

"Of course. Move out, boys. Take our guests to their cells. Oh, and doctor?"

Medic still didn't move.

"You can keep tidying this up. There will come someone soon to take you to your next task: heal one of our guests. He looks pretty grim and we prefer that he stays alive. You, yes, you, come here and take the spy out of here. Leave him wherever you want. In the trash, for instance. Ah, and make sure he's dead. We don't want any more unpleasant surprises."

Not even when everybody left and found himself alone with the robots again did Medic move a single inch.


	17. Chapter 17

"Let us out! Let us out!"

"Pop! Pop?!"

"He's a spy! He has to be a spy in disguise! He's kidnapping us!"

"Get us out of here!"

Dell could feel the blows given to the rear part of the van with that strength desperation gives. He forced himself to continue but every scream hurt his chest.

He stopped the vehicle. Before getting out of it he took a moment to breathe deeply and arrange his thoughts.

Right after he opened the doors he received a hit and Lincoln pounded on his neck.

"Fucker!"

He was a soldier and took after his parents but he was still a boy. Dell made him move with a slap.

"Don't be stupid. I try to help you."

No one moved. Irene retained the youngest ones with her at the bottom.

"Come on," Dell tried to calm down and soften his voice, "please, kids. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm the real Dell Conagher. I swear."

They still didn't move. That totally sounded like an excuse, something a spy would say. Didn't it?

Minnie gazed at him and approached reluctantly to touch or actually graze his cheek.

"Is...it really you? Dad?"

Dell let his daughter touch him as much as she wanted. So that she knew he was no robot and saw they could approach him because he didn't mean any harm.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm here, love."

Wilbur had been the only one who didn't resist going with him, he had practically jumped into the van as soon as Dell told him to do it. When he heard his words, he let go and ran to hug him and rub his face against his chest. Dell held him with one hand while the other caressed Minnie's cheek. There was a child missing. Irene wanted to embrace him too but contained herself and just approached. She wasn't still very sure and remained alarmed, ready to attack him if he thought of doing any harm to his little siblings.

"What happened, dad?" she asked, "Did they release you? Did you escape?"

"Where's Mom?" Minnie asked.

Dell looked away.

"God, Dad, tell me Mom..."

"No, no. She's alive."

"But is she alright?"

"Are you really the Engineer?" Lincoln touched his cheek, red due to the slap and ignored the pain and the impulse to give it back. "Where are you taking us?"

"To a safe place." Dell replied.

"But the uncles and..." Irene said.

"It don't matter. Let's go."

He pushed Lincoln softly so that he got back into the van and could close the door. Irene stopped him.

"It doesn't matter? Dad! They are your partners! Your friends!"

"That was years ago."

"What does it matter how much time?" Lincoln replied, "Our father would always defend you and has told us well about you. He used to say you were a great guy. I don't know if that was years ago or if he was wrong."

"...I also appreciate your father, that's why I didn't leave you two behind. But you can't ask me to intervene much more."

"Why not?" Minnie asked.

"You wouldn't understand."

"You can tell us! We aren't babies!"

"That's it," Lincoln gave Dell a harsh look, "my father was wrong."

"Please, boys. All I'm doing is to keep you safe. Those people...They'd do anything to get what they want...They would hurt and kill you..."

"If that's true, isn't it more of a reason to face them instead of running away?" Minnie insisted.

"Come on, man, you are free." Lincoln encouraged him.

"We were on our way to meet Salton Haxe and we were going to ask him for help. Surely you two can do something." Reagan intervened, sneaking between Minnie and Irene.

"It's Saxton Hale, dumbass." Lincoln corrected him.

"Hale..."

Dell looked down and remained silent.

"Hale," he repeated.

"He will give us what we need." Minnie said.

Silence again.

"Yes. Let's go to Hale. He...will know what to do..."

Lincoln got into the van. Although it was a bit difficult, Dell got to get Wilbur away from him and convince him that he couldn't have him in the copilot seat, as they normally did when they drove together. He was about to close the door when he noticed that the eyes of the young had suddenly moved from him to something behind him. Did Mann send a robot to follow him? To break the deal? Frowning, he grabbed the pistol he had on his belt.

However, a voice talked and made him erase that assumption.

"Engie. Thank goodness."

Out of all the people the children expected to see, Uncle Mun was definitely the last. But it was still a pleasure. Even in spite of his looks, which made evident that he had had some dreadful weeks.

"That woman ordered me to follow you and kill you if you dared to have free thought. Yeah, I had to act a little bit to get something done. And be free of her control." He raised a hand and showed the head of a Robot Scout. "Are the kids in there? Alright. Look: Scout, Demo, that woman, Spy, Medic...All the others have fallen. But you and I can do something still. We can walk around, they watch us, but they're just junk one can get rid of. Let's..."

Sniper stopped. Dell was still holding the gun and now was aiming at him.

"Engie, I'm the real Sniper, dammit. I know you've always been paranoid about spies, mate, but you have to believe me. It's me, and I can't bloody wait to end with that bitch. Do you want me to show you it's me? Okay."

Sniper dropped the robot's head and grabbed his kukri. He cut his hand with it and showed the blood which started to come out to Dell.

"Are you gonna put that gun down now? I'm going back to the base so that they don't miss me, I find out how to set the team free and you, you go prepare the artillery, so they don't find us unprepared when we..."

Dell fired.

"Dad, what are you doing?!" Irene yelled.

"But that was really Uncle Mun!" Reagan exclaimed.

The bullet hit Sniper in a rib. Letting out a scream of pain, he looked at Dell and he looked back at him cold as ice.

"Crap, Engie, damn, don't...tell me you're on Mann's side..."

"Pyro is wounded. And they knew where to find my children." Dell said with trembling voice.

"Crap..." Sniper repeated, wobbling.

"Dad...No...You didn't..." Minnie muttered, getting pale.

Dell turned towards the inside of the van once again. His voice when he talked was still soft, but the confidence and niceness he had inspired before were gone.

"Don't move."

Dell closed the door without finding any resistance this time. Then, he turned around to look at Sniper for the last time.

"I am really sorry. But family comes before everything else...You wouldn't understand."

He turned around, ready to continue his way. In that moment, Sniper let out a grunt which seemed to be actually a chuckle.

"Sure...How could I know what one could do for their family..."

Dell already had a hand on the handle when Sniper came closer, bearing the pain.

"The truth is...ung...I thought you were smarter. Do you really think she won't hurt them because they told you so? Are you really going to trust her word? She told us Scout and Demo were dead and it was a lie. She also exaggerated about her power. Her army is just junk, and they, people. We can blow them into pieces, just like we did years ago. Engie. If you help her win, your family will be dead indeed. Your family, you, me and everyone who gets in the way. I don't like to beg but, please, Engie, open your eyes, before they close them forever. If there's a moment to act, it is right now."

It was for naught. He would go and let him bleed to death, or Mann know about his betrayal and destroy him; whatever happened before. He closed his eyes. He had thought about it years ago and now saw it was true: RED had been disintegrated. The team did not exist anymore. Everything had gone to hell.

Then, Dell approached him and embraced him. Sniper thought he had heard him sob. He pressed him very tight.

"Don't feel bad," he told him, "I would have done the same in your place."

When they separated, Dell looked at his partner with the determination he had thought to be lost.

"Let's kill that whore."

"I can't wait to slit her open."

"Eh...The shot...I..."

"Don't worry. I think you shot me in a rib. I'll survive."

"I'm glad. I didn't want to kill you, but I was afraid I hadn't aimed well. We'll go to Mann Co., to see Hale. I thought of killing him, but now he's the only one we can trust in. I'm gonna need tons of ammo and scrap metal."

"Alright, I'm going back to Mann. I'll say I got this when I struggled against Scout."

They walked towards the rear part of the vehicle: before leaving, they'd have to calm the children down and inform them about the news. Dell opened and right after doing it he got a punch in the jaw.

"Son of a bitch!" Lincoln yelled.

"He's just like his father." Dell muttered, touching his jaw with pain.

Sniper smiled as he took a look inside. He had to talk to them, because it was clear that they wouldn't trust Dell after what they had seen and heard.

"Easy, everything's alright. We're going to kick those bastard's metal asses." he explained to the children.

"So Dad..." Irene said.

"Your father loves you so much. You are such lucky kids."


	18. Chapter 18

Heavy, when opening his eyes and turning his head, found a very familiar face. But he had no reasons to smile.

"Doc..."

Medic drew a weak and somber smile as he examined his torso. Seeing the perforations in it, he conjectured that his lungs were filling with blood. In that case, he had to act quick.

"You here too, Doktor?" Heavy asked him quietly. The sentries were watching every movement and who knew if they didn't have microphones as well.

Medic nodded. He didn't part his lips until some instants later:

"They killed Spy."

"Really?"

"This time, yes."

Heavy felt silent and closed his eyes with pain.

"We will find way out. And we will kill them." Heavy allowed himself to share that thought with Medic. They were most probably listening, but they would take his words as worthless threats.

Medic didn't reply again. He was lucky he could borrow a medigun because, if it wasn't for that, those wounds would have killed Heavy helplessly. But they were not as dumb as to let him give the Russian man more energy than what was necessary for his survival: the pair of Robot Heavy didn't leave him alone for a single second.

Heavy expected a word from the doctor. A smile. A joke, like he used to do. But not that time. For the first time, he saw the doctor serious, gloomy and that made him realize how serious the situation was outside.

Medic felt his chest, now free from marks and checked his pulse through the veins in his neck. There was no reason for him to be there anymore. The exam was over. Heavy was ready to undergo torture again. So, without saying a word to his old friend, the doctor grabbed his instruments and left the room, taking Heavy back to the darkness. Although this time the shadows seemed darker.

"Well. Now what do I have to do?" Medic asked the robots.

They didn't reply. They shook as if processing his words and elaborating a response was too hard. Medic almost got bored waiting.

"Wait for instructions," was the answer.

Medic nodded. He supposed that in that case he should have to go back to his room and wait. They didn't want him to wander the facilities and nose around.

But it seemed there were other plans for him. In the way, a Scout ran to him. Seeing that, Medic's reflex was to cringe and wait for the fatal blow, but it seemed the only thing the robot wanted was to bring news.

"Your assistance is needed."

And took him to the infirmary immediately.

The Robot Medics which normally swarmed here and there had changed their tasks, now they were exclusively attentive to the health of their recovered creator, so now the wounded were responsibility of the human doctor. Right after he came in, Medic cast his eyes upon Pyro, which slept a restless dream on her bed, but it seemed he hadn't been called for that.

"What's up, Doc?" Sniper drew a little smile from a corner.

Medic checked him. A shot in the ribs.

"Nothing too bad," Sniper himself said, "But that'd better not stay in there."

"True."

So Medic worked on it immediately.

"I've seen them throwing something to the dump. They wrapped it with plastics but I've noticed it was a body. Do you know who that was?"

Medic nodded.

"Spy."

"One of his tricks, I guess."

"No."

Sniper stared at him.

"Did they kill him?"

Sniper gulped and didn't say a thing for a long while. Medic prepared the thread to sew his wound, not looking at him.

"We never really got along but I didn't want to see him dead either..."

Medic was still focused on his wound.

"Is it true what they say?" Sniper continued, "That Gray is alive? Did you...?"

"Yes. I did."

"...I'm glad. I'd love to see that one bleeding like a pig."

"Sniper?"

"Yeah, Doc?"

"You have free movements, right?"

Sniper looked at the robots which were watching from the door from the corner of his eye.

"More or less."

"I need to have access to the dump and this infirmary."

"How much time do you need?"

"Hours."

"Many hours?"

"Many."

"Mhm...Engie went to ask Hale for help. If everything goes right, they'll have a big distraction. I can do something meanwhile."

A grunt made them both turn their heads. Pyro woke up, or perhaps she wasn't sleeping, and again she tried to fight against her bandages and the numbness in her body.

"So Engie went to Hale."

"Yes. And I'm supposed to be watching him. I'd have to kill him if he tried something."

"I suppose we'd have to kill Pyro too."

"I guess. I don't know what they told you, but they didn't tell me anything about it. Surely they'll let her rot in that bed."

Since he was done, Medic approached Pyro and, since there was no document nor any analysis around which could give him a hint about why she was there and what her estate was, he checked her. She smiled and muttered his name. He looked at her to the eyes.

"Do you want to make Gray pay as much as we do?"

Seeing how her smile turned into a grimace of deep hate, it was clear as water that he was right. Medic grinned.


	19. Chapter 19

The watchman stared at Dell in a way that didn't inspire much confidence to the young ones. He most probably didn't know who he was and, if he did, he had some reason not to let him in. They saw him using his walkie-talkie to consult his supervisors, walking away from him.

"Do you think we can trust him after all?" Lincoln asked.

"Sure we can. He's our father." Wilbur replied, offended.

He looked at his sisters asking for a sign of approval and they gave it to him, although, deep inside, Minnie and Irene wished to have that unbreakable faith in their father. They had seen a side of him that they didn't like at all, something they couldn't forget so easily, no matter how many reasons they were given.

Eventually, the two men exchanged a few words, Dell gave the watchman a kind pat on one shoulder and rejoined the boys.

"Come on. Mister Hale will greet us now."

Reagan trembled with excitement as they crossed the facilities heading towards the office of the boss. He told Archimedes, which was perched on his shoulder, all the fantastic stories he had heard about him. The young Conaghers listened to them, regretting in a way that they had to heard them from a seven-year-old instead of their parents. Although, as the tales progressed, they progressively took them as made-up and ended up not paying attention. Men who jumped from planes to strangle yetis...Pfft! What else?

"Just one thing," Dell broke the silence when they came into the elevator, "don't slipt off."

Minnie smiled at that warning. For Reagan and Wilbur, who were sticking their noses into everything, it could have had sense to ask them to stay close but the rest of them were old enough not to do something stupid. Well, perhaps Lincoln would do something stupid. But as for her and Irene, they wouldn't touch anything they shouldn't or explore the building on their own.

They were almost there. Hale's office couldn't be missed: it was the massive door at the end of the corridor. Reagan's trembling grew sharper. Dell grabbed the doorknob and, cautiously, peeped inside.

"Mister Hale?"

A loud noise came from inside the room. Dell drew back a little. Was that a moo?

"Come in and close the door, before it escapes!"

Dell came in fist and in a way used his body as a shield. The children peeped inside avid with curiosity and they found a man in shorts and shirtless who was grabbing an enormous water buffalo by its horns and was taunting it, a vision that made them hide again behind their father. The Conaghers at least.

Irene asked herself what on Earth was that animal doing in an office. Minnie was surprised to see how well the man was managing the situation, because he seemed to be playing with a pet. Wilbur, on the other hand, admired the strange shape of the hair in his chest.

"Bloody rascal, you thought you could fool me!" Hale shouted at the animal.

And then he span around himself, dragging the buffalo with him, had a few twirls and then let it go. The buffalo hit the window, crushing it and fell with a moo.

Hale let out a jolly laughter as he cracked his knuckled. He didn't have a single drop of sweat in his body.

"Worry not, kids, there's a mat downstairs. He'll be fine."

He ignored the children's astonishment and looked at Dell.

"They've told me you wanted to have a talk with me, little man. Yeah, I remember you. The one with the toys."

Dell should have imagined that if an horde of crocodiles hadn't been able to affect Hale, time couldn't. While Bidwell–who had stayed in a corner so still and quiet that they didn't realize his presence until a while later–had aged a bit, as it was natural after such a long time, that guy was exactly the same as he remembered him. Not a single white hair. No new wrinkled. It was fascinating and disturbing at the same time. It was Saxton Hale.

"I thought you didn't work for us anymore," he commented, talking to his employee.

"That's right, sir. The death of Mann's heirs in '72 caused that their services were not necessary any longer," Bidwell reminded him.

"Now...Now I remember." Hale sat by his CEO desk, which presented a few scratches after the water buffalo flew through the window. "And I guess you've come to get even..."

"No, that's not the case," Dell quickly replied.

Hale seemed a bit disappointed that that wasn't the reason for his visit. "They don't come with revenge plans anymore...", they heard him lament in a whisper.

"I came to ask you for help. Gray Mann is back."

The flippancy with which Hale had dealt with the matter vanished in a wink. His eyes opened more and stood up, leaning towards the group.

"What do you mean he's back?"

* * *

Coffe. How he had missed it. How he yearned its smell and taste.

Sniper sighed and spilled the content of the cup on the control panel. But the cameras still worked. So he crouched down to take a look at the wires, disconnected them carefully and, to make sure they wouldn't be able to reestablish the connection, he pulled and stripped them well.

"What is happening?"

Sniper stood up and looked at the Robot Scout with an innocent look.

"I spilled my coffee on the console. I bent down to pull me pants and I saw your wire's been chewed, mate."

The robot took a look at the incidence. Then it turned to Sniper. Although it was a rather inexpressive machine, it was clear that it was suspecting something.

"This place's full of rats. Bloody rats as big as cats. I remember when we worked in here, they scared us to death. They gnaw everything. It'd be good if you put rat poison around here."

"It will be notified." was all the robot said before walking through the door.

Sniper had to made an effort not to laugh at its metal face. What would those wire-full idiots suspect? However, the rat thing was completely true. He remembered spending the nights shooting at them when they got too close to the huts were his teammates slept.

He turned his head towards the now dark screen and while he prayed for the first time in many years for everything to go well, Medic unwrapped the plastic carefully. He watched the corpse for a while until he reminded himself that he couldn't lose time and wrapped it back again. But it was something unheard-of, having Spy dead in his arms.

He was used to carry his partners to a safe place in the battlefield, even Heavy; it wasn't a problem to drag Spy back to the base avoiding all sorts of scrap metal and remains. He had seen much, much worse situations.

An explosion in some part of the left wing distracted him but he didn't stop. An alarm sounded loudly and could almost hear the robots running towards the origin.

Gray and Olivia Mann heard it as well. They looked away from the map which occupied the whole table and turned towards the entry. Olivia ran.

"What is happening? What the hell is happening?!"

None of the robots stopped to answer to her, so she went to find out herself. Gray followed her at a much slower pace, because he was still too weak for those things.

What they found was that a room of the third floor in which they stored spare parts had been blown up. And had dragged practically the whole area with it. A trace of gas and blood went down the stairs.

"Don't stay still in there! Find the culprit!" Olivia roared.

The robots obeyed the orders quickly.

"Where is that...?!"

"Me, miss?"

Olivia glared at Sniper.

"This was intentional. You didn't do it, did you?"

"I shoot at people. I've never used explosives in my life. Not my style." the Australian calmly explained.

Olivia crouched down and touched with the tip of the fingers a substance which stuck on them.

"Pyro."

"What did you say?"

Olivia stood up and grunted at Sniper:

"Find her. And kill her."

"Yes, miss."

Gray arrived by the time Sniper left.

"Who did it? Who did this? It wasn't the..."

"It was that damned pyromaniac. It seems she's got enough energy to piss off people. I can't wait to get rid of her..."

The infirmary. There it would find clues about what had freed the prisoner. The Robot Demoman approached with a firm pace, to find that Sniper walked out of it and locked the door.

"Seems they didn't drug her enough. She came out of bed and even dragged her catheter. She won't go far, in her estate. I keep the room locked in case she thinks of coming back for medicines."

The robot said nothing and soon ran away. Sniper went with him.

Inside the room, Medic, once Spy's body was on the table, unwrapped him again. Carefully, one could even say tenderly, he removed his thousand-dollar suit and folded it to leave it on a corner. The same with his underwear and shoes. He thought of taking off his mask, but he told himself that it wasn't needed, so he left it on. He remembered those times when his body had belonged to him in a way, when he had treated and explored him, and observed that there were new wounds and scars in it. Without the Medigun and Respawn, his job became harder and more dangerous, clearly.

"Well, my friend," he whispered to the body, "you may feel a little discomfort."

And, using his bonesaw, he opened his chest.


	20. Chapter 20

There were so many things in that warehouse that one didn't know where to look. Reagan ran around the area reading aloud all the signs he found and placing his little hands on the boxes. His brother had also separated from the group and had a word with an assistant. He, with the help of a fork-lift, helped him reach three crates which had caught his attention and were placed in high. He opened them in a corner, and Reagan ran to his side to admire what he took from them.

The first thing was a shotgun, whose label described it as "Reserve Shooter". The second, a rocket launcher, "Black Box".

"We have to take one of these for Father."

The third item was a pair of gunboats which Reagan stole as soon as he saw them, even if they were twenty times his size.

"I want a rocket launcher too."

"No, you're too small. Get a gun instead."

Dell didn't recur to anybody: on his own, he located and grabbed those crates which seemed to contain something useful to him. He got a pair of shotguns and examined the components inside a toolbox. His children, though curious, didn't want to move away from him nor touch anything fearing a reprisal from Mr. Hale, even if he allowed them to take anything they wanted. For a long while, that task was made in silence.

"I didn't want you to find it out this way" Dell finally declared in low voice.

"But you were going to tell us, right?" Minnie asked.

"...Yeah. When you were older."

Dell contemplated a screwdriver the box contained and eventually turned towards Irene, Minnie and Wilbur.

"I hope you don't think we were monsters. We simply did what..."

"Dad. It doesn't matter. Really," Irene wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his bald head tenderly. "Now the only thing we have to think about is Mom."

"Yes. You're right."

Dell caressed her arms. Despite not having been apart for too long, it almost seemed surreal to touch his children again. That dark hole really left you wrecked, he thought. And who knew for how long some would have been there.

"Should we grab some weapons too, Pop?" Wilbur asked.

Dell hesitated.

"If you're gonna collaborate, it'll be with conditions, okay?" he told them, looking at them severely. "You'll let me take care of the dangerous part. You'll do what I say, and you won't discuss. Understood?"

"Yes, of course." Irene replied, and encouraged her siblings to nod too.

"I want a gun too" Wilbur pulled his father's clothes.

"No. Better: you'll be in charge of warning us about what the enemy does." he replied, with such a movie-like tone which gave it such importance to the task that Wilbur could only reply:

"Ah, okay. Cool."

"I'll build dispensers." Minnie insisted when she saw Dell's expression. "Come on, Dad, you taught me how to do it."

"I know. I know you're more than capable. But it ain't the same to build a dispenser in the hut at the backyard as in a battlefield, with bombs, shots and spies.

"Dad, choose" Minnie crossed her arms: "you let me build or I'm shooting those sons of bitches."

Dell smirked and patted her arm.

"You convinced me."

Then he turned to his first-born.

"And what do you want to do?"

Irene pondered about it carefully before replying.

"What would you say if I told you that I'd like to use a...curing gun?"

"A Medi Gun?"

"Yeah, like Uncle Ludwig's. The one I have is his, I want to give it back, so I won't touch it. Uhm...I believe we're going to need a doctor, in case something happens...I know I'm not one but...till we find the uncle..."

"Yeah. Yeah, alright. It'll be good to have more than one medic in the group. I'll tell them to get one for you. Do you know how to use them?"

"More or less, yes. It doesn't seem too difficult."

"Well. But you'll have to be very careful, you hear me? Medics are a very juicy target. If there's a problem, you run, alright? Did you hear me, kids? Don't try to be heroes."

He wished he could have gotten them bulletproof vests. That way Dell would have felt much calmer. He looked for another toolbox for Minnie, exactly identical to his. He even found a yellow hardhat and googles like the ones her father used to use in the battlefield. Minnie's pride was brought a bit down when she saw she couldn't even lift the box a bit from the floor. It seemed to weight a ton, the confounded thing, but Dell carried it on his shoulder with no problem.

"By the way...How was the party?"

"Oh. It sucked. It was full of stupid boys."

"Full of boys? What boys? Anyone I know?"

"Come on, Dad..."

"See? I told you." Irene whispered to her sister's ear with an amused gesture.

"Look! I got a kill tracker to know how many robots I kill!" Reagan ran to their encounter with the gun on his hands and Archimedes on his shoulder flapping his wings in an attempt to keep his balance.

Irene frowned when she saw that child with a weapon as big as he was. She glanced at her father, wondering why he didn't say anything to them. Dell understood instantly.

"He looks so much like his father," he replied with a discreet voice, "everything I tell him will go in one ear and out the other. The only thing I can do is to watch him."

"We're gonna unleash Hell!" they heard Lincoln roar.

Minnie committed the mistake of looking towards him.

"Argh! For the love of...! Gross!" she exclaimed, narrowing her eyes with disgust: her cousin had torn up his clothes and was walking around as Aunt Zhanna brought him to the world.

"Well," Dell calmly added, "both."

"Cadet, look for honey! We're gonna need a lot!"

"Coming, big bro, I mean, at your orders, sir!"

Saxton Hale joined the group soon after. He was still with his chest bare and he hadn't armed himself, but there was a determined look in his face.

"How they didn't tell me sooner..." he kept lamenting when he came, but he slapped his own thigh and shooed away that thought himself.

He looked with pride at the two Does, reacting with a look of satisfaction? to Lincoln's nakedness, and then softly patted Wilbur's shoulder as he said: "How nice, eh, kids? Slaughtering with daddy.". Finally, he turned to Dell.

"If everything's ready, let's lose no more time."

Dell didn't reply. He felt himself travelling back in time, to those moments previous to a combat, waiting for the countdown with his teammates in the room. The same suffocating feeling provoked by the adrenaline. He felt his heart racing.

The years of calmness and his new role as the head of a family had softened him. Sniper hadn't told him, but he knew that was what he thought. He and the others. He was not the old Engineer anymore. Now he was softer, he was rusty. And this time his team was not with him, but a bunch of children and Hale. It was true that that man was worth a whole army, but it was not the same. It was not his team.

But that didn't mean everything was lost. No way.

He was an expert in solving problems. In that moment, the question was that his wife and friends were in the hands of a gang of mother-hubbards. The answer was pretty simple: using gun.

Dell looked one by one at his children, made sure that the three of them were by his side, that they were as determined as he was, and walked to the door.

Mann had fucked up messing with his most precious creations. He would use a good amount of gun against him and his damned squad.

* * *

Sniper didn't know for how long he would deceive the robots. He tried to hide every trace he found of Pyro, but, honestly, she wasn't making it easy. Why couldn't she find a bloody hideout and wait in there for the right moment? She was moving too much, which was inconvenient not only because the robots would find her sooner or later but because, seeing the blood he had found, her wound was reopening. Pyro, he remembered, was too impulsive. He didn't know why Medic hadn't given her more precise orders.

He stopped in front of a wide window and pressed himself to it. Something was approaching. He grabbed his rifle and took a look through the scope.

His lips curved slowly until a smile from ear to ear formed.

"At last...This bullshit is over..."

A namesake robot approached him. It seemed it was looking for him to bring him a message from the bosses, but this time Sniper wouldn't listen. He moved his gun away from the window, aimed at the robot and fired. What a pleasant feeling that gave him.


	21. Chapter 21

"...The greatness of your heart!"

"Yes!"

"Surrendering would suppose the victory of the enemy, and you know who's behind them!"

"Sure I do! The Arabs! It's so obvious!"

"Then you know what to do, right, Soldier?"

"Yeah! You convinced me! There I go!"

After that debate with the spirits of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, Soldier stood up and took impulse to hit with his head all surfaces he found until he found a way out, consuming his last energies.

The door opened all of a sudden and Soldier ran out of his cell charging against Sniper.

"Aha! It worked!" Soldier exclaimed on the floor.

"Soldier, get away from me, bloody hell!" Sniper kicked under him.

"Hey! Sniper! You're a mess!" Soldier stood up and gave him a hand to help him stand up. "I heard you inside!"

"Yeah, I suppose so. But I was only tackling Mann, to see how I could escape...So, mind if you let my neck go?"

Soldier, in spite of his fine smile, needed a moment to study his increasingly red face and realize that he was telling the truth before releasing him.

"Thank you," Sniper grunted, "Now let's go get the others. Quick, Pyro's playing the cat and the mouse with them."

Just like he did to release Soldier, Sniper manipulated the lock of the ironclad door of the next cell. Soldier got inside.

"Zhanna!"

"Jane", she stood up and her eyes glowed, "You came. I knew you would."

Sniper stepped aside and looked away while the couple fused in a kiss which almost made them end up smooching on the floor, very Hollywood-like. Really awkward.

"There is your friend. Go with your team. I am going to get Misha and the boys." Zhanna said.

"Let's go!", before leaving, Soldier added: "Zhanna!". When his wife stopped, he smirked. "You look ravishing!"

Blood returned to Zhanna's cheeks.

"Tonight we have sex."

"Agreed! Let's go now!"

Each of them ran in a different direction...which Sniper was thankful for, because he was just about to leave and let them be as slimy as they wanted.

Scout had almost given up when he was freed. With his eyes closed and a hand on his belly, he had made the resolution to stop fighting. What for? He would only extinguish his energies quicker. And for naught. He felt it himself. He was dying and no one was going to help him. A frozen sensation had possessed his body. He felt sorry for the others but he would join Spy soon.

However, when he heard the door open and well-known voices called his name, he opened his eyes and turned his head towards the light.

"Soldier, take him out with Engie and Hale. I'll go get the others. Hurry."

"Nnng?" Scout barely open his lips.

"Come on, Scout, don't be a whimp.", those were Soldier's word of encouragement as he took him upon his back and crossed the corridor.

A man came to their encounter, a flesh and bone watchman. Soldier gave him a tremendous punch that made him kiss the floor while he screamed: "Get out of my way, you Jihadist!". An American hero with a rescue mission wasn't going to stop for some random dummy.

Demoman and the young woman who was with him had to be in the following cells. After making sure that there was no one around, Sniper opened the door. Once again, the greeting wasn't very kind.

In spite of the unattended shot in the leg, Demoman had waited for his chance in front of the door. As soon as it opened, he blindly pounced on whoever was on the other side and started hitting them. Sniper being that person was a happy coincidence.

"SON OF A WHORE! I WAS DYING TO SEE YOU! JUDAS!"

"Demo! Demo! Knock it off! It's not what you think, dammit!"

Since he wouldn't stop hitting him, Sniper had to recur to sinking his nails in the wound, so that the pain gave him the chance to be on top of him and hold him well.

"Demo! Listen to me!"

"IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO MY DAUGHTER OR THOSE CHILDREN...!"

"Demo! I've never been on Mann's side! I wouldn't be that guy's ally for all the gold in the world! Do you really think I would betray you? Eh? After all we've been through?"

It seemed so, because Demoman didn't shut up until a while later, after a long and insistent explanation.

"If I did what they said, it was to have the chance to release you. I swear on everything sacred. I swear on me Mum."

"Oh, hell...I thought for a moment that..."

"Yeah...Well...The fact that the team doesn't exist anymore doesn't mean we gotta stop being friends and watch each other's backs...Does it?"

"Aye...I'm sorry...About..."

"It's okay, I'm getting used to it..."

"Let's go after them."

"Engie, Hale and the kids are outside with the arm..."

" _ **TRAITOR.**_ "

Sniper and Demoman turned around. A Robot Engineer was looking at them. It carried a shotgun in its hands. Sniper didn't have time to use his gun.

Then, two enormous hands grabbed the robot's head from behind and snapped its neck until the wires broke and the automaton convulsed. They kept snapping until the body fell and the head remained in those hands. Heavy's hands.

"Big guy!" Demoman let out a relieved whistle and approached the Russian to pat his back. "It's always nice to see you, and more now."

"No weapons?" Heavy asked.

"Engie and Hale brought them." Sniper replied.

"Well. In the meantime, I don't need them."

But it seemed they were going to need them, because soon an alarm resounded through all the building.

"Seems like your spy game is over, boyo." Demoman observed.

And that word made his little smile vanish.

"...You know what happened to Spy, right?"

Heavy looked down at his feet.

"Medic'll take care of it."

Without looking at his partners nor offering them more useless explanation, Sniper concentrated on opening the last door remaining.

Gwen stood up quickly when the door opened, ready to use her fists, even if it wouldn't be of much use.

"Gwen! Me girl!" Demoman exclaimed, forgetting about everything to run as fast as his limp allowed him towards the woman.

"Dad! Are you alright? Did they do something to you?" Gwen hugged him, ignoring the pain in her shoulder.

"You're the one I'm worried about. These are my mates, they came with help. We're gonna blow them up, love!"

"Those sons of bitches are dead! I'm not calling my police partners! I'm beating the crap out of them myself! No habeas corpus or bullshit!"

"That's what I'm talking about! Let's go!"

"Ah, by the way, I'm Gwen, nice to meet you."

With renewed strength, Demoman made his way towards the exit by his daughter's hand, leaving Heavy and Sniper behind, who exchanged a surprised glance. "Dad?", Heavy's lips muttered.

* * *

That was a good place, near Mann's base but in a prudent distance. A rooftop from which they could see everything. That was where Dell and Minnie built their nest.

After a hit with the wrench, the sentry emitted a beep and started moving, now operative. Wilbur grinned.

"How big!", he exclaimed. He had never seen such a big sentry. At home they only had little ones, no missiles, not much gun. Something simple.

"I know, right, son?" Dell smiled satisfied. "You'll see it in action."

After admiring those buildings, Wilbur used his hand as a visor (even though there was no sun) and watched the horizon. There was movement in that cursed building.

Dell turned his head towards Minnie, who was filling the dispenser with ammunition so that the users only had to approach and take all they needed.

"What do you think?"

The sensations that took over Dell's body when he saw her with the construction helmet, the googles and the gloves! Exactly like him, almost twenty years before. It was like a window to the past.

A past full of bullets, blood and guts spread around the ground...

"...It's great, dear. Well done."

"Where did Mr. Hale go?" Irene asked. Restless, she would have walked around the rooftop if it wasn't for her father's warning about the snipers.

"I don't know. But we won't worry about him. He knows what he's doing. I guess."

"Hey, something jumped the fence!" Wilbur suddenly warned.

It didn't have a metal glow. It was a human being. And was carrying a sack on their shoulder.

When it was close enough, the Conaghers saw that it was Uncle Jane himself, who was carrying another person on his shoulder. Or a corpse?

It was time for Irene to act. She swallowed salive and ran to their encounter with the Vaccinator in her hands.

Lincoln and Reagan passed her.

"Father!"

"Daddy, you're in one piece!"

"My boys!" Soldier put Scout on the ground with the same delicacy as if he was a potato sack and ran to meet his first and last born.

"Wait, wait, uncle, don't move." Irene told Scout, who was trying to move.

She prayed not to screw up and activated the machine. A red glow envolved Scout and he stopped complaining, his movements didn't hurt him anymore and his face reflected the relief he felt.

"Be...Better?" Irene asked, turning the device off.

"Yeah!" Scout stood up with a jump and gave the girl a high five. "Well done, lil' Doc! But we'd better move, they got Snipers. Hey, Solly! Move!"

They ran to cover at the rooftop, but that didn't stop Soldier from placing Reagan on his shoulders.

"I'm so proud of you, boys! So proud I might explode!"

"Thank you, sir!" Lincoln replied, saluting him.

Dell turned towards Soldier as soon as he heard his voice. He put Reagan down and opened his arms.

"Engie, old friend."

Dell left the nest for a moment to embrace him.

"I don't know what I was worried about. Not even a nuclear bomb could kill you.", he laughed.

"You look like a gnome from the forest, with that beard." Scout joked, with his arms crossed and his now typical rabbit smile.

"Come on, come here, dwarf, you're still a man-child." Dell approached him and hugged him too, patting his back.

The children smiled at that reunion. They were too little to remember the last time they saw their parents joke and smile that way.

"You brought weapons?" Soldier asked.

"Well, sure. And the best." Engineer replied.

"Then tell me where they are and move. I get first blood." Scout said.

* * *

There! He was seeing her! Or was it the shadow of a robot? No, no, it was her, the fugitive they were looking for. Mann moved his horrendous face away from the window and grabbed the microphone.

"She's in the garage! Calling all units, she's in the garage! Move your butts, damn you!"

But she would be gone by the time they got there. Gray Mann was starting to consider grabbing a weapon and go there himself. He expected that the human staff had heard that at least. Machines could be impressive, but they turned out to be terribly idiotic most of the time.

"Incredible, all this people and that..."

Olivia came into the room with a somber expression.

"What's with the cameras, Olivia?"

"Ask Mr. Mundy. This was a sabotage."

"What? What did you say?"

"Saxton Hale and Mr. Conagher brought weapons. They come to rescue them."

"Hmpf..."

"I shouldn't have trusted them, but I will amend my mistake...Father, tell all units to crush them. I'm going with them."

Olivia put her mittens on and pressed her fists.

" _I won't let any of them live._.."


	22. Chapter 22

He had always pictured it in a different way, honestly, a bit like in so many movies and comic strips. But he wasn't disappointed. It seemed like a nice place in which to spend the eternity. He met people he remembered every day and others who, for different reasons, had been pushed to a corner in his memory. He could wait there for his lover, taking care of her until her own time came.

Then, the brightness that covered everything disappeared suddenly. His lungs demanded air with such urgency that he opened his mouth and took it desperately.

A light blinded him. But it was no divine glow, but the light of a light bulb which was hanging from the ceiling.

Spy stood up a little, with a bit of pain, and turned his head. Again, he found a familiar face but it was not one of so many friends, relatives and partners who had left this world years ago in a more or less gentle way. It was Medic and, though exhausted, he was definitely alive and seemed glad to see him.

"I thought it had to be you the one who decided when and how to die." he said with a soft voice.

Spy drew a smile.

"That was nice from you, docteur. Where did you put my cigarette case?"

* * *

Scout hit the ball hard. It was a perfect pitch, which hit the robot which was about to grab Zhanna by the hair right in the face. Heavy took advantage of its confusion to punch it.

The young Does and their mother were approaching while the wounded had no choice but to move slowly and Heavy and Sniper, although they were in charge of covering their escape, couldn't do much with such limited resources. Good thing that the others were ready to act. With a projectile, Soldier destroyed the bunch of Scouts which was running towards the jailbreakers. Scout ran towards the others carrying weapons.

"Can you shoot, cyclops?" he asked Demoman.

"I could blow up these pigs with no arms, legs nor torso, just with me mouth, boyo!", was his answer.

"Here you go, then." Scout gave him a grenade launcher.

"HA! Check this out, precious! You're going to see how a DeGroot works!" Demoman roared, and his words were followed by a grenade rain.

"Hey, babydoll! Got something for me?" Gwen asked Scout.

Scout tossed her a pistol that she grabbed in the air.

"Go there to have your shoulder fixed first."

"Wait, I'm gonna make them pay for that first."

So, in her way towards the nest, Gwen blew some robots' circuits out for coming too close.

"PLATOOOOON!"

The boys stopped abruptly and stood straight. Soldier's eyes wandered around them. He grinned.

"Come to my arms!"

The line immediately broke and the six boys ran to punce on their father until he was practically hidden among them. He patted backs, caressed heads, returned smiles. When he hugged and touched his sons, Soldier felt the happiest man in the planet and part of the universe.

"Well, boys, enough for the moment! There'll be more affection when those walking trashcans are destroyed!"

"Sir, yes, sir!", was the simultaneous response from the kids.

"Fitzgerald, Theodore and Reagan will assist our people giving ammo and rescuing the wounded! Washington and Jefferson will attack from the distance with those rocket launchers! Lincoln, you're coming with me! Wait! Jefferson, what's with your glasses?!"

"Sir, the enemy broke the right glass, sir!" and to show it, he put the finger through the empty hole.

"In that case, you're in no condition to handle a rocket launcher on your own! Theodore will assist you!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

No member of the Doe Platoon complained about the rol he had been assigned. Their father could have ordered them to jump over a bridge, they would have obeyed without talking back. The only answer possible to all what their father said was: "sir, yes, sir!"

There was no time to lose.

Irene ran towards the wounded who were already near and cured them with the medigun. Although it was not the right moment to think about it, she couldn't help the Does reunion hurting her deep down, because that family was now complete, parents, children, uncle, and hers was missing their mother. Nervous, she looked for her among so much people.

"Where's my mother? Didn't my mother come with you?" she asked.

"Run, run, they're coming!" Sniper pushed her away.

He was talking about a bunch of Heavies and Pyros that had joined the Scouts. Some of them seemed bigger and more difficult to destroy. Of course, Irene didn't stay there to watch them closer.

"Kaboooom!" Demoman yelled, raising his fist with euphoria.

"Kaboooom!" Gwen mimicked him, letting out a laugh.

For a combat in which there was a big chance to end up dead, Gwen was having a great time. The comments that the ex-teammates of Demoman yelled were their way to let out adrenaline, and as the robots came closer, as more metal blew up, more adrenaline their bodies produced, so more gems came out from their mouths and more elaborated. Also, her father was now fully back to life, and it was something beautiful to see.

She was not the only one who enjoyed the battle with her father. Lincoln finally had the chance to fight in a real battle, not in an absurd simulation. And Soldier felt terribly proud of him, because he was good. Very, very good. Fierce but sensible, he spotted quickly the weak spots of the machines and attacked mercilessly, cursing both in English and Russian. His first-born was now a man; not that he doubted it, but now he saw it with his very eyes.

One of the grenades that Demoman launched went straight to the face of one of the biggest Robot Pyro, but this one used the compression blast from its flamethrower to push it back.

"GRENADE, GRENADE, GRENADE!" Fitzgerald warned.

It wasn't easy to hear a thing in that mess. That's why Irene couldn't run in time.

When she became aware, she was lying on the ground. Her ears were burning and her head spun. She tried to stand up. She wasn't able at first, then, although wobbling dangerously, she did it. She had dropped the medigun; she almost fell to the ground trying to pick it up. It was time to escape from there, as her father told her. But she didn't know where she was going to. Confused, she moved to a side, towards a corner away from the robots.

Dell, not seeing her among the group, looked for her but they were shooting at them, so he had to focus on repairing the sentry while dodging the bullets. From time to time he turned nervously towards his other two children, who were on the floor.

"There's more coming!" Scout yelled. The shrapnel had made him a serious scratch on his cheek.

"That's not all! They called the mercs in too!" Sniper pointed at him.

Indeed, while the robots approached, the humans working for Gray had come and made the most of their metallic partners harassing the group shooting at them. A bullet hit Heavy on one hand, another one pierced Gwen's ear. Faster than the robots, they came closer. Though it was good that they were easier to wound and kill, their presence was not welcome.

"Fuck, they brought the whole family!" Soldier grunted, coming close to the dispenser with Reagan in his hands. He had his helmet full of dents and holes and some of his ribs were broken. The child had scrapes all around his body. He kept his shotgun well tight.

"Spy!" Reagan suddenly yelled, pointing at Dell's back.

Although his father was the most incredible man in the world, he couldn't be holding him and behind his partner at the same time.

Dell was fast and gave a blow and another one with his wrench until the robot, recovering its real appearance, fell broken.

"There's more coming!" Wilbur announced.

"More?!" Minnie exclaimed. How could that people have so many robots?

"Do we have ammo for so many?" Soldier asked Dell.

"I hope so!" he replied, not without concern.

* * *

Pyro felt that she was losing her strength. In other times, when she felt that way, she only had to call Medic and he came quickly and brought her back to shape. But they had been apart for a long time and it wasn't a good idea to call his name or anybody else. So she kept walking, silent, this time slower.

She hadn't seen anybody in a long time. All of them were gone. The shooting and the explosions resounded in miles around, giving her an idea of what was happening: there was a battle and she had to go there. She didn't even have to force her legs to walk: they set way there on their own account.

No weapons. No protection. Nothing.

Anyway. Duty was calling and she would go no matter what.

They had sent all units to fight there, no one had to remain inside the building. They would be there. So there she would go.

A human mercenary saw her and tried to shoot at her. He missed; that was his doom. Crouching down to grab a broken glass from the ground, Pyro pounced on him with sudden speed and before he could recharge his weapon, she stabbed him in the neck at least eight times. With her hand soaked with blood, Pyro panted, dropped the glass and continued, this time quicker. She was seeing Heavy's head, and if Heavy was there, Dell couldn't be too far.

Irene trembled, hidden in a space among two wooden buildings. She couldn't find the others. She heard the shots but the steps of the robots even closer. Her mind wasn't very clear yet and fear was starting to dominate her. She didn't want to move from there. The robots were too close. It would be better to wait until the group advanced or someone came to rescue her. Going out would be a suicide.

Someone approached. It was not a robot, but a person. But they wasn't wearing a uniform, like Gray's mercenaries, but underwear, and was moving slowly, with a lot of effort. The young girl's heart bounced.

"Mo-Mom?"

It was her! She wasn't alright, she was staggering...Oh, by God, she was covered in blood!

Pyro stopped too and turned her head towards the alley. Was her mind playing tricks on her again? Was that her girl? Was it really Irene? She felt she was about to faint when she convinced herself that it was not one more hallucination.

A tremor and then an unexpected barrier prevented that the girl ran to her mother's arms. Her mouth opened with terror. Her eyes met a Robot Heavy's, which were nothing but cold and heartless lights. The mechanism took a step towards her. Just one. Pyro ran to him without thinking.

In that moment Irene, who had always thought that her mother was a goofy woman, a bit immature and, in spite of her pyromania, completely inoffensive, saw how she ripped with her own hands every metal sheet, every wire, every limb, not giving the robot the chance to use its weapons, with her eyes open wide and showing her teeth like a rabid animal. The robot was reduced to a few component whose 'life' soon extinguished. Even then, Pyro kept tearing it to pieces until she lost her breath.

Panting, she turned towards her daughter and she unconsciously drew back. Pyro, if she even noticed that gesture, didn't mind it. She stood up and, tottering, ran to caress her cheeks. She did it for a long while, as if she needed to be sure she was real, and then filled her face with kisses. Irene also kissed and hugged her, she also had her spare.

"We're here, Mom...Mommy..."

Only Pyro's condition interrupted that moment. She looked worse at each moment.

"Let me have a look."

Pyro removed her bandages to allow Irene see. The girl saw that she had been cured but Pyro had reopened the wound by moving so fiercely.

"Goodness, Mom, what did they do to you?"

"And your siblings? Where...?"

"They're with Dad and the uncles, don't worry. They're alright. We're all alright."

Irene noted that Pyro mixed a complain with a relief sigh. She kissed her again and went back to a sea of cuddlings.

"Is your father alright?"

"I don't know. I think so."

"I have to go..."

"Wait, Mom, you can't do anything like that."

"I have to go with them. We're a team. All of us..."

"I can...heal you. Don't move, wait."

Her hands trembled when she used the Vaccinator, but she relaxed when she saw it was taking effect. Pyro's disgruntled expression relaxed and it even seemed that most of the blood which stained her body was disappearing. She breathed without feeling any pain anymore, relieved.

When she put the machine aside, Irene observed that it was warm and made a funny noise. She then saw small reddish sparkles in its surface.

"Oh, wow, I think it's broken..." she muttered.

Pyro watched it in silence until her lips parted:

"The übercharge..."

"Say what?"

"Let's use the übercharge!" Pyro told her daughter, with her eyes open wide.

"But what is that?"

She wasn't following her, and Pyro didn't seem to listen. She quickly looked for something she could use as a weapon, anything. Since there was nothing but rubble and broken glass in there, enough for some person but not for a bunch of robots, she decided to steal one from one of the Robot Pyros which wandered around in search of victims. Irene tried to stop her, and didn't know whether she should admire her or be angry at her recklessness when she saw her running towards the machine and, before it had the chance to use its flamethrower, pushed it to the ground, grabbed its head and hit it against the ground until it was destroyed. Now she understood why Spy had made that comment about her. If she was like that with her bare hands, how strong she'd be armed?

"Come on, love, activate it!"

Irene examined the medigun in a rush. She saw nothing which referred to that charge, but...wouldn't it be that button she saw on one side?

She aimed at her mother hoping it wasn't the sudden death's button...

...And the two of them were involved in a force field.

Pyro ran very fast towards the robots. Irene thought for a moment that she wouldn't be able to follow her, but she found that her feet seemed to be lighter now.

Now Hell was unleased in Coaltown. At first, the old mercenaries and their descendants were frightened when they saw all that sudden fire. They thought that the robots were going to burn everyone and everything. Then, they saw Pyro running and Irene behind her.

"Pyro!", many exclaimed.

"Mom!" Minnie yelled, following a laughter.

Dell licked his lips and lowered his head to fight a knot in his throat.

"Oh, thank you, God Almighty..." he whispered.

* * *

Medic watched absorbed how the cup was filling. More than absorbed, he was tired. Only his iron will—and a small injection of adrenaline, which he had found at the infirmary—prevented him from falling asleep right there, on his feet, leaning on the coffee machine. In any case, a bit of caffeine would help him stay awake. It wasn't time for a nap. If there was a moment in which a doctor was needed, it was then.

Well, what a mighty mess was outside! And that was not Pyro's doing: if Mann had sent all its people, that could only mean that the help had come.

He grabbed the coffee cup. Too hot. He had to pass it to each hand for some minutes and blow a lot. He took a sip thinking that it was cooled enough, but he burnt the tip of his tongue.

"Doctor."

Medic turned around. Olivia Mann was there, staring at him. Only a few inches away form him.

"Ah, good afternoon, miss. Any assignments for me?

Olivia slapped the cup, making it fly through the air.

That made Medic understand that miss Mann had found out everything and was irritated.

To end with any doubts about it, Olivia grabbed the doctor by the shirt, dragged him to the nearest window and ,with a strength that gave his old Russian friend a run for his money, not even opening it or anything, threw him through it.

Olivia shook the glass pieces on her and peeped out. Medic was lying three stories under. She didn't know if he was alive but he wasn't moving. He may have broken his neck on the fall. Who cared? There were more important mercenaries to think about than the stupid doctor. The sniper or the engineer, for instance. Since he was most probably dead, dying or too hurt to move from there, Olivia made her way out of the building, towards the battlefield.

Gray glanced out to see the still motionless German and followed her. But only to the exit. He would take a different way from there. Unlike his daughter, he wouldn't use his fists, but a gun which he jealously and closely kept inside a pocket of his jacket. He had learnt a lesson eighteen years ago the bad way: to get rid of the enemy and protect oneself from traitors, one always had to carry a weapon. That day it would serve both purposes.


	23. Chapter 23

Perhaps it wasn't the best moment, but Pyro didn't give a damn. She made her way through the robots making the most of the strength the übercharge gave her. When it vanished, she grabbed her daughter's hand and kept her very close as she destroyed one robot after other, until she reached the rooftop.

Wilbur, forgetting for a moment about the possible snipers, rushed to his mother's arms, where he was received with lots of kisses, which he later shared with Minnie.

"My ducklings!" Pyro called them, just like when they were small and followed her all around the house as if she was mother duck.

"That was fucking awesome, Mom!" Minnie told her, barely able to hold some tears after seeing her mother was alright and back to them.

Pyro took them near the nest, so that they could keep kissing and hugging in a safe place. Then she turned towards Dell. Leaving his machines and removing his safety googles, he approached her and after wrapping his arms around her, kissed her in the lips. 'I'm so glad you're alright', 'I love you', 'I was so scared' were unnecessary words, since Pyro understood without him opening his mouth. So all Dell said was:

"Let's wreck them like they tried to do with our family."

Pyro smiled. Because of the mask, he had never seen that expression of disturbing malice.

"All of them..."

She hated to separate from her family again, but a good Offense guy was always in the front line. She equipped herself with a good flamethrower that Dell had chosen specially for her, a flare gun and a hammer and ran down the stairs. The first thing she did was saving Scout from a spy which, discovered, tried to stab him to death.

With the team almost complete, the fight was won. After Gwen spent her last bullet to blow up the head of a mercenary which was settled at one window, there was no human enemy left. Although a wave of robots had come, their number dropped drastically. The team was determined to win, even if they had to use weapons which were not their specialty or even use the ones which were left unloaded as a nightstick–that was how Lincoln left three of them headless and liked it so much he had no intention of getting more ammo.

But there were still some of them left, and they were not going to be deactivated without putting up a fight. Some Scouts reached the nest. Minnie grabbed one of the shotguns and destroyed the head of one of them with a lucky shot. Another one got a shot in its chest. She was focused on that one when a Scout came at her back. Minnie realized when it was onto her. She had no time to fire.

However, the robot went still and then started to convulse. A few sparkles came out of its body before falling lifeless to the floor. Behind it was Spy. He was pale and his suit was soaked in blood. But he smiled.

"Spy!""

How many times he had heard that, but this time they were happy to see him. Minnie retained so much tension that she let it out by running to embrace him. Although Spy let out a groaned when the girl pressed his chest, he wrapped an arm around her.

"Geez, Spy, you look horrible!"

"I know. They can all consider themselves dead."

"Spy!" Dell ran to him and smiled. "I've never felt so glad to have you around before..."

"De rien, amigo."

"Come here, near the dispens..."

"Something's running towards us!" Wilbur warned them.

From among the robot mob appeared one which overtook the rest. It was not like them, it didn't imitate any class. It was like a bomb with legs. It was heading towards the nest.

"RUN, RUN, RUN!"

Minnie would have tried to destroy it before it reached them, but her father grabbed her wrist and forced her to leave the nest quickly. She soon saw why. The sentries and her uncles shot at it and that thing kept running unstoppable towards the machines. The robot crouched down, started to spin and then exploded. Part of the ledge, being an old and tumbledown building, blew up with the machines, falling to those who were under it. Zhanna lost her consciousness after getting hit in the head and her sons Washington and Fitzgerald carried her to a safe place.

"We gotta build more, and quick. Let's hope someone can cover us." Dell told Minnie.

Spy grabbed his revolver and with an unpleased expression started to shoot at the remaining robots. It was their fault that his lighter was missing. The one Wilbur would find later, and kept inside his pocket to give it as a present to his mother.

Heavy, distracted by his sister's state, received a blow in his back that made him let Natacha go and when he bent in pain hands like pincers forced him on his knees and wrapped around his neck. Scout, Sniper and Gwen aimed but Olivia was hidden behind the giant, she was so small and he so big.

Heavy tried to fight in vain. She was so strong! More than he was!

"I've been training for this moment for eighteen years," Mann's heir whispered to his ear, "Hate makes you so strong, right?"

"Don't touch my uncle Misha!" Reagan yelled as he threw her a rock which barely flew a meter.

"That's right, my girl! Kill him! Kill him!" Gray Mann encouraged her from a few yard away.

If only she moved a bit...Dell tried to make a plan as fast as he could. If only he could build a sentry and aim it in the precise angle, or force her to move...

He was so focused on it, so eager to find the way to kill her, that he didn't notice that Wilbur was leaving the secure area. All of them were concentrated on every movement Olivia did, since Heavy's life depended on it, so the boy circled the crowd without anybody stopping him.

"If you do it, I swear to God I'm gonna tear you to pieces" Soldier threatened, aiming at her with his missile launcher.

Scout suddenly started to run, to try to shoot her from the correct angle. But Gray Mann wasn't going to let that teen-man spoil his girl's moment of glory, so he took his gun and shot at him, getting him in the groin. Scout fell to the ground letting out a scream and Irene ran to him with her Medi Gun.

With his eyes wide, Wilbur walked towards Gray Mann.

Olivia couldn't look at Soldier to the face but, behind his enormous brother-in-law, she grinned. She squeezed more and more the thick neck of the Russian, making his face go redder. A bit more and goodbye to that ball of fat...

The old man didn't notice that he was there until he had him barely a few feet away.

Wilbur stopped and blinked slowly.

A withered little flower was looking at him.

"Oh, little boy! I'm so glad you're here! My poor petals are withered! Could you do something to bring their colors back?"

 _(Gray Mann looked surprised at the little boy who was staring at him not with terror but a dumb smile. He should probably shoot at him but would it be worth wasting bullets on a stupid child?)_

Wilbur, of course, couldn't refuse. He grabbed the watering can

 _(the gas canister)_

and poured water on it generously

 _(gasoline)_

"Oh, so freshy!"

 _("Eh! What are you doing, you brat?!")_

"But there's something missing: the colors are still not back!"

Oh, Wilbur could guess what it needed. A little spark of magic...

 _(Spy's lighter)_

...and the flower shun in all its splendor!

Olivia turned her head. Everyone stopped paying attention to her.

Although she couldn't release her prisoner, she could perfectly see from there what was happening, since it was not very far away from her. What she saw was her father's body being devoured by flames, and a child in front of him which smiled cheerfully and from time to time let out a girly giggle.

"Oh, Christ..." Gwen muttered, terrorized.

Even the boy's own sisters and father were mute with horror. Pyro, on the contrary, broke the silence with her clapping.

"That's my boy!"

An indescribable wrath took over the young Gray and pushed the grief to see her father dead once again to a corner. Letting out a roar, pushed Heavy to the ground and pounced on the child, ready to tear him apart with her own hands.

"NOW, NOW!"

The team was ready to fire...

...but stopped.

Something grabbed her before any of them had time to aim. When she looked down she saw that her feet were not touching the ground anymore. And a big-sized pair of mountain boots. She tried to turn around to see who it was; Saxton Hale did her the favor to turn her around so that they could watch each other face to face.

The witnesses put their weapons down. No. That was not their business. It was Hale's.

"...Last time you were not brave enough to face me, Hale..."

"That was because you were a child. Now you're all a viper."

There was only one thing that could be done with a viper which only injected its venom to people. For everyone's sake, Hale pressed Olivia's delicate neck with his big hand and only needed a squeeze to break it like a twig. There was no speech, although a good reason for that was that Pauling wasn't there to face the dying enemy.

Silence fell as Hale dropped the now dead body. One by one they approached, forming a circle around her. Sniper spat on her.

"It's over" Hale announced. And with that everything seemed to be resolved.

It was time to rest. Irene was in charge of doing the last healings before leaving the Vaccinator aside and walking to her family. The Conaghers fused in a hug. So did Demoman and Gwen. Soldier announced that his brave soldier would be awarded. Scout made an effort to keep his pride and gave Spy a brief embrace as he patted his back.

"Oh, I missed the party."

Heavy turned his head and smiled.

"Doktor!"

Medic drew a smile and made and elegant bow to his audience. Apart from a limp, scratches made by the glass and a soul less inside of him, he was fine. Archimedes left the safe hole in which he had been hiding and flew to perch on his shoulder, Medic greeting him with a caress in his head.

"Good thing that I didn't miss the best part," he continued, showing his saw and plastic bags in his hands, "collecting organs!"

"Burn this one too when you're done. So that she can't be brought back." Hale told him.

"Of course. We've had enough. Where's my nurse?"

Irene guessed that went for her. She approached shyly, with his Medigun in her hand.

"Do you want to help me?" Medic asked her.

"Yes, of course. Eh...This is yours" she replied, offering him the machine.

Medic raised his eyes to the pistol and then at her. She smiled and stretched a hand, not to grab it, but to caress the girl's hand.

" _Meine geliebter nichte_.." he said to her before turning his eyes again to Olivia's corpse. Irene smiled as well, supposing that was a good thing.

"I hope you have an iron stomach. This is going to be messy."

* * *

Zhanna gave away kisses and hugs among her sons. Without their father around, the military discipline relaxed quite a bit, this time allowing themselves to be noisy and showing their filial love with enthusiasm. Hale's mustache showed an ascending curve when contemplating the scene. He then looked at Gwen and, after her, at Irene, Minnie and Wilbur. Eventually, in the same direction as they were. The nine men had gathered in a circle, some yards away from them.

They didn't try to listen to the conversation. They could imagine. So long without seeing each other, gathered in such a way...

Honestly, it didn't take them long to separate. Whatever they said to each other, it was quick. Each of them took a different path. Sniper alone. Gwen, after kissing the children, joined Demoman. Spy and Scout walked together a few steps until the spy seemed to vanish. Zhanna and her sons went to join Heavy and Soldier and left too. Dell and Pyro walked towards them by the hand.

"Let's go home, kids," their father told them, with that soft voice that had given them goodnights in their childhoods. With that murmur, Irene, Minnie and Wilbur finally felt in peace.


	24. Chapter 24

**If you want to make this chapter more 'cutie', use _See you again_ by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth as soundtrack (however, I recommend the cover by The Animal in Me)**

* * *

After sixteen years locked inside a trunk in the hut, the old uniform saw the light. Pyro extended it so that her children could see it well and touch it. She also took the gas mask, which she stared for long. She gave it to Wilbur, who put in on and let out a giggle that the mask muffled.

"I don't get how you could fall in love with her with that thing on." Minnie told her father, "It gives the creeps."

Dell laughed.

"Yeah, most people couldn't see beyond the suit."

He shared a glance of complicity with Pyro and they got closer to kiss the other's lips, which made their children fake dramatic retching.

After that, he opened a shoe box and grabbed from it a pile of photographies that the family squeezed in to observe.

"Is that Japan?" Irene asked.

"Yes. Look. Suijin."

"Wow...They took you everywhere..."

"Indeed. That old Zepheniah Mann bastard had lots of land."

Dell went to the next photo, which made the children scream.

"That's uncle Tav! With a skirt!"

"He's flying through the air!"

"That's his weenie!"

Their parents couldn't tell them the anecdote behind that photo because laughter stopped them.

The next one was a group photo, dated the 12th of august, 1971. The RED team was sat at some stairs, surrounded by beer bottles. Dell and Pyro watched it for a long while.

"Tell us the truth: you miss that, right?" Minnie said.

Dell pressed his lips as he looked away.

"Sometimes. But we got lots of things from the experience." he replied, wrapping an arm around Pyro, to which she replied leaning her had on his shoulder.

"Stop now, you're gonna kill us with diabetes." Minnie wrinkled her nose and put out her tongue.

"Well, sorry, girl, but I'm a man who's in love with his wife. You should be thankful, 'cause that's the reason you're here now."

"It's really a shame we don't see each other anymore..."

Dell looked at Pyro. Both of them remained silent, until he nodded.

"Ri Ri..."

"Yes?"

"Next week's your birthday...What do you want to do? Are you going to spend it with your friends?"

"No. I don't want parties. After all that's happened, I only want to stay at home with you." she replied. "Something simple, family style. Nothing more."

"...Sure..."

* * *

Heavy's voice stood out. There was no way of knowing what he was singing, if a birthday song or a merry Siberian tune. But he seemed happy, so nobody complained.

"Air raid!"

The pea hit Wilbur with between his eyebrows. That was considered the start of a food fight among them.

"Cadet! It's your cousin's sweet sixteen! Mind your manners!" Soldier order him, and finished his sentence with a loud burp.

"Wilbuuur" Dell leaned a bit to give his son a warning look from the other side of the table.

"Yes, Daddy! I mean, sir! I'm sorry, sir!"

"Sorry!"

Reagan was too excited to remember he had to keep some manners at the table. His mother had shared a secret with him that morning, before they went to the Conaghers' house. She had told him that it was possible, probable, that maybe in some months there would be a new member in the family. (He was the youngest but his brothers would tell him someday that every time their parents allowed them to play trenches, grenades included, that meant they wanted some privacy). If her suspicions were confirmed, he wouldn't be the youngest anymore and would become an OLDER BROTHER. Older than someone else. Although Zhanna had warned him that nothing was confirmed, Reagan was already dreaming about becoming an instructor and protector. Truth be told, instead of another boy, he preferred that the bald eagle brought a girl this time. For a change. And that way he would have someone to play the cook and to paint nails, because his brothers didn't want to.

Gwen didn't mind much about the burp. She was getting used to those weird men and women. They were rather funny once one knew them, really. From the first moment they were mighty kind to her and treated her like an equal. And since the start of the week she was legally Gwendolyn DeGroot, their kindness towards her took a different tenor, more familiar. Although her mother didn't like much that she took the family name of that scamp, she left free, so happy. Screw her adoptive father. Her real father, with all his story behind, was infinitely better. Just...she would hide her connection to him to Tim and the other guys. She didn't want to lose her job. Although her place at the lawyer's office was assured and in the insurance company she worked as a part-time clerk didn't mind her father's history, it could provoke to them a bit of...distrust. She didn't want to lose that job. Out of all she had–not enough–, that was her favorite.

Scout said something to the girl and she, was it because he tickled her ear or for what he said, she pushed him away with a giggle. Demoman attracted Spy's attention to it with a soft elbow. "Those two will make us grandpas", he whispered to him. They laughed at the idea...Though, seconds later, when they thought about it carefully, their smile disappeared and each of them grabbed their drink to give it a big gulp.

Did Scout really forget Miss Pauling? No, Spy told himself. Gwen was only a second dish. With all probability, he would keep sighing for Pauling till his deathbed. He had already heard him ask if it was remotely possible that she dropped in, and his expression was of disappointment and sadness when he convinced himself that he wouldn't see her face this time either...though it brightened when Spy told him she said hello. Good thing that Gwen had accepted his flirting as a little game which could be kind of enjoyable. As long as she did nothing foolish, like punching his nose or marrying him...

Spy didn't want to talk about the scars in his chest but it seemed his former Support partners did. It didn't matter that they were at the table: Sniper unbuttoned his shirt and showed his bare chest, in which he kept his, a bit faded, to a curious Fitzgerald. Medic, by his side, explained with all detail to the boys the procedure used to bring him back to life, pointing at different part of his torso. He accepted the compliments with a little smile, although, deep inside he expected more flattering comments.

"Eh, sis," Minnie elbowed Irene, "I think Jeff likes you. His eyes are on you all the time."

Irene looked discreetly and found that, indeed, Jefferson was glancing at her. When their eyes met, the boy was very ashamed, and as they did in his family every time they went through an awkward moment, his voice turned sharper and rushed to punch his brother Teddy for the most insignificant reason. Irene turned again towards Minnie and found her waving her eyebrows, for which she got a stomp under the table.

"Well, you're marrying Lincoln."

"Take that back."

Irene laughed. Still with a smile on her lips, she looked around the table. The adults didn't hide anymore to smoke, drink or talk about Mann Co. or other serious matters. There were laughter, pats on shoulders, kisses, arguments, jokes and demonstrations. Things one could find at any birthday. A lunch in family.

She understood in that moment that Olivia Mann had made a terrible mistake thinking that the team was dead. They were not a team to start with: they were a family. Families, in spite of the distance and time, were still there for each other, no matter what.

Yes, she could let pass that practically all the people in the room had blood on their hands.

* * *

 **THE END**


End file.
